


Hold You Like the Answer

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Feels, Physical Disability, Season/Series 02, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-05 03:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 38,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: The morning comes late, later than it should, but she’s here, in Will’s bed, Will’s gloriously large bed, sprawled out with messy hair and a quiet grin. It had been a hard week, a long week but she’s here now like he wanted her to be, like she wanted to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This picks up where [Teacups for Rainwater](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12049479) left off. Right now it covers the whole of season two (in three chapters) filling in around the fall of 2011, March 16th 2012, and election night. I’ve moved a couple of dates around, but everything else is canon-compliant so there are major spoilers for season two. Warnings for off screen (minor) character death (a couple of times over), the usual language, and some sexiness as well as some minor mentions of ableism. Both Mac and Will are younger in this fic than in canon, Mac by a couple of years and Will by a fair few more (there's about 10 years between them here).
> 
> Many thanks to sewnbythecolourofgreen for encouraging what I’d thought would be a short and sweet follow up in the same segmented style as 'Teacups'... before 3k morphed into almost 40k. With the plot oozing out all over the place I’m working on a shorter pre-series prequel (she says not sure where she’s intending to cut things off) and looking ahead to season three. I’ve left a lot of things to build on but thoughts and suggestions are welcome; I have no idea which bits I want to take from season 3, and independent of the angst level, I’m short on ideas for noncanonical moments as well.
> 
> Title and epigraphs from another Sarah Kay poem 'The Type'.
> 
> Notes at the ends of the chapters will link to visual references as well as moodboards or anything else I've cobbled together for those of you who are interested.
> 
> As with 'Teacups', I know that everyone's experience with disability is different. This fic isn't meant to represent disability as a whole or even a singular experience. While parts of this draws from my own experiences I've also tried to draw from experiences outside of my own as well. If anyone has concerns or questions I'm happy to address them.

Only some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,  
Admit they do not have the answers they thought they would by now.  
Some men will want to hold you like the answer.  
You are not the answer.  
You are not the problem.  
*

 

The morning comes late, later than it should, but she’s here, in Will’s bed, Will’s gloriously large bed, sprawled out with messy hair and a quiet grin. It had been a hard week, a long week but she’s here now like he wanted her to be, like she wanted to be. They’d gone to dinner on Wednesday, climbed the metal staircase to the second floor and let themselves be suspended in time. He’d laughed, for the first time that week, and she hadn’t begrudged him the teetering trek back to the ground. That night had been a rough one with Neal’s arrest and the memorandum, but she’s forgotten about that now as she stretches and makes her way into the kitchen smiling softly, content.

“That’s for you.” She taps her spatula against the side of the plate as he passes. She’s pleased with herself. She doesn’t normally cook him breakfast, she doesn’t normally cook, but she’d stood at the counter and sliced mushrooms, cubed ham, cried over the onion, grated cheese. She’d made him breakfast and—

“I already ate.” It isn’t harsh, but the words are there. She feels them settle like stones in her stomach as she glances at the empty plate still next to the stove, the eggs and the rest of the filling sitting waiting.

“Oh, OK.” She’s picking up before she has time to sort through what he’d said, separating out the ham from the mushrooms, spooning them carefully into the tupperware she pulls from a drawer, tiny half cup boxes she crams to the brim.

“I’ll clean up.” He’s back from the bedroom as she sets the frying pan in the sink, turns on the water. “You eat before it gets cold.”

She could sit at the counter and keep him company but she sits at the table alone, facing the windows. She can only manage a few bites before her stomach churns and she sighs, returning to the kitchen for another container.

He’s still washing dishes, the empty plate, as she closes the fridge, leaning into the counter for a second.

“Going into the office?” It sounds conversational, but she knows it isn’t. She knows those are four words he hates more than anything, but he‘d asked so she needed to answer.

“No.”

“Later then.” She can hear the note of tension now, the creeping judgement. She hasn’t spent a weekend here since early September, since Jim had left, since— 

It’s a sore spot for the two of them. There had been a honeymoon of sorts. Two weeks, long dog days of summer that had stretched out golden and perfect alongside one another, alongside both of them, his hand in her hair, on her stomach, around the curve at the back of her knee. She’d breathed against his neck, his shoulder, his lips, drawn air from his lungs. They’d laughed, slipping out of the office to spend the afternoon alone, guilty like children with their hands in the cookie jar, too delighted to see what might be coming.

It’d started with an unexpected blow. Jim and his ultimatum had stung, but she’d understood, she still understood. He couldn’t stay because she needed him, because she still needed him. He wasn’t far, only Concord, only Alexandria, Sutton, Gilbert; he could come back. He could come back, but he hadn’t. She hadn’t asked, had been very careful not to ask, but he knew. He knew that she wanted him here, that it wasn’t only that she needed him. It was everything else too.

She’d understood, but even so, the honeymoon had ended that night, a bucket of cold water thrown over her head, leaving her gasping at the shock of it all. 

It’d started that night and picked up steam in the following days. The drone panel hadn’t worried her as much as it had made her furious because Will, at least, knew better. She should’ve known what was coming but she hadn’t, and that unsettled her, still unsettled her weeks later when it happened again, when he’d pushed back about the drone strikes, the memorandum, when she’d been afraid for a second to let him on the air, but by then they’d both calmed down and he hadn’t said a word, hadn’t stepped out of line, but then again she hadn’t been surprised, hadn’t blinked, when he’d complained instead about how much she’d been working, about how infrequently he got to see her despite the fact they worked in the same office, despite the fact they’d spent an hour that afternoon having dinner, laughing at the stupid joke he’d insisted on telling a dozen different ways while they’d waited for the bread and salad, the chicken, the crêpe cake.

It’d been a couple of days since then, but she knows what he’d been expecting, what he’s insinuating. He expected her to leave. He’d made other plans. She could ask what they were, she knows that. She could, should, be honest with him, tell him he was misunderstanding, but she’s grown so used to the back and forth, to the omitted honesty, that she doesn’t stop to consider inquiring.

“I can go now.” Even later she can’t figure out what it is that gives her away, the shift in her mood that cascades into his, his anger suddenly hers, her conflicted heartbreak his.

“Mac.” He reaches for her, hands glistening and wet but she’s too far away, already moving back toward the bedroom.

He steps behind her, trailing along, letting her have the victory of her exit but when she reaches the bedroom, when she tries to tug the charger for her laptop free from the wall, he’s there, bending down to yank it from the outlet.

She wheels up the cord as he holds the charging block, waiting until she reaches for it to hand it to her.

“You don’t have to go.”

“No, it’s fine.” It sounds inconsequential, it sounds inconsequential because she makes sure that it does, had practiced for years to make sure the lies rolled off her tongue without the slightest hiccup: I can do that, that doesn’t hurt, the price doesn’t matter.

“You’re angry.” He tells her like she doesn’t already know and she has to stop herself from laughing. She was angry, so was he.

“Mac.” He steps around in front of her so he’s sure she can see him, so he doesn’t startle her when he reaches out and tugs her bag from her grasp. “It’s all right if you have to go to the office.”

“I don’t have to go to the office. I don’t have to go anywhere.” She isn’t sure why she tells him, why she’d felt she’d needed, suddenly, to tell him.

He blinks, considering, but he’s already talking because he knows her well enough to know she won’t stay until he figures it out, not when it’s easier if she doesn’t, if she doesn’t have to see how disappointed he looks when it all clicks into place. “I can pick you up for a late lunch in a couple of hours we could— wait. You brought your laptop with you.”

“Yeah.” She takes the opportunity to yank her bag free from his grasp and zip it shut.

“Mac.” He stops her, a hand on both her shoulders despite the way she recoils. “You were planning on staying here.”

“I wasn’t.” It was the truth and he seemed to know that, because he doesn’t call her on it, doesn’t question it.

“What were you planning?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She glares at him, but she know she’s not winning this one, not without escalating things.

“Mac,” he sighs tiredly and she looks away, shrugs vaguely.

“I thought we could go to Rough Trade.”

“You hate Rough Trade.”

“I don’t hate it. I don’t like—”

“You hate Rough Trade.” He reiterates gently. “It’s huge, crammed full of records with no place to sit. Why…?”

“I wanted to go.”

“Because I always do or because,” he trails off, waiting for her to fill in the rest.

“After Wednesday,” not after dinner but after the spat, she doesn’t clarify, the spat that had started over the memorandum. She doesn’t need to remind him that he and everyone else seems to think she’s working too hard, that she’d accused him of not taking any of this seriously enough. “I thought you’d want to go.”

“Mac,” It’s gentle but there’s a softer note of sorrow that makes her shudder, makes her want to scream and throw her phone across the room when it rings in her pocket.

Jim. She sends the call to voicemail and sends it to voicemail again when he calls right back.

“Hello?” Will’s phone rings and he picks up. She takes the opportunity to step around him, to try and make her exit. She stops when Jim’s voice fills the room mid sentence.

“Are you two fighting?”

“No.” She snaps before Will can say anything, not that he would really, but she wants this conversation to be over.

“You’re not out somewhere are you?”

“God, Jim.” She groans but he ignores her, responding instead to Will’s reply.

“Mac and I were discussing what we wanted to do with the rest of our day.”

“Did you forget about your appointment?”

“I rescheduled.” It isn’t a question. It’s a blatant lie, but Jim hears an uncertainty because she wouldn’t lie about this, not about something this important. She wouldn’t have rescheduled, again, not again, but she would forget, because while important it was also trivial, forgettable.

“4 pm.” He reminds her blandly of the facts. “You had to cancel on Tuesday, something,” he tries to sort back through his week, find the threads of hers, a task that’s becoming increasingly difficult the longer he’s away. “You couldn’t leave the office.”

“Fine.” She says, belatedly realizing she’s just confirmed his suspicions; she and Will were squabbling, again.

“Mac.” His voice is warm, encouraging, but she walks over to where Will’s standing and pulls the phone from his grasp.

“I’m hanging up on you now.”

“I’ll call—”

She doesn’t let him finish just disconnects the phone and tosses it onto the bed hoping Will will reach for it and not for her, but he knows better than to fall for that.

“We can have an early dinner.” He smiles at the thought, hand on her arm. “I’ll pick up a couple of things for dessert. I can whip something up while you’re in the bath.”

It’s the opposite of what she’d hoped for but she’s careful to smile before she pulls away. 

*

Will’s waiting for her when her appointment finishes. She’d known he’d be there, but had hoped he wouldn’t be.

She’s in the same sour mood she’d been in when she’d arrived. Michael had spent fifteen minutes trying to get her to do what he asked but she’d been irritable, complaining until he’d left her alone on the machines to work out her frustration. It hadn’t fixed anything, it hadn’t changed anything, but he didn’t get paid enough to deal with her mopping and her fussing; he’d made that clear on day one. If she wanted to waste an hour of their time on the the elliptical that was her choice. 

Will doesn’t say much on the way back to his place. She’s sullen and, despite the fact she’s trying not to glare at the passing buildings, she knows he can sense it.

“I’ll run you a bath.” He offers smoothly as they step off the elevator into the hall and she has to stop herself from groaning.

“No, Will.” She sighs and tries to swallow down the acidic notes in her voice.

“Shower? I know this wasn’t the weekend you wanted.” He’s gentle but he isn’t cautious. He’s standing in her way, quite literally at the moment, and he knows it, but he wants her to hear this even if it’s only going to piss her off.

“I just want to go to bed.” It’s more true than not so she knows he’ll let it slide if she doesn’t push her luck.

“I’ll wash your hair for you.” He says with a soft smile and she almost growls in frustration. He wanted to do this for her, she knows that. Normally it wasn’t this hard to let him, normally she enjoyed his careful doting when they had the luxury of time like they did tonight.

“There’s no shampoo.”

“I’ll run the water then go downstairs and grab some.” He offers and she gives up trying to put him off. “What do you normally get?”

“The cheapest thing on the shelf.” That’s another thing that had changed since she’d gone overseas. She knows he must realize that, but he doesn’t look surprised when she doesn't explain. 

*

He comes back as she slips farther down in the tub, toes peeking out to curl around the rim of the basin as he takes a seat beside her on the folded up bath mat.

“I got this one.” He pulls out the first bottle. “It smells like what you’ve been using.”

She sniffs at it obediently when he holds it out to her, cap popped open, and she nods because he’s right, it’s the same floral and coconut scent that had come from the bottle she’d thrown in the trash at her place earlier in the week.

“And this one.” He pulls out another bottle, this one smaller, this one more expensive she knows because it’s the shampoo she used to use, the tiny bottles tucked into gift sets from her parents, the ones she used to splurge on before she’d gone overseas.

“You remembered?”

“You left a bottle in the shower. I used to,” he shakes his head. “I also bought this cheap,” he pulls the last bottle out of the bag and frowns at it. “I’m not sure anyone should be buying shampoo for a dollar fifty eight a bottle, not in Manhattan.”

She laughs a little at how put off he sounds and he smiles at her before tossing the bottle so it skids across the floor toward the trash can.

“I like the coconuty one. It’s very nouveau riche.”

“It costs less than five bucks.”

“My nose doesn’t knows that.” He cracks a grin and she rolls her eyes.

“That’s bad.”

“It made you smile.”

“Bad.” She insists but she laughs when he shrugs, settling in beside the tub so he can reach to run his hands through her hair, scratch lightly against her scalp as he rinses the lather out.

*

“Did I miss something?” She picks up the call, clicking over to iNews before switching back to the video screen to frown at Jim. “This isn’t about work.”

This wasn’t explicitly against the rules, the rules that they’d never talked about until he’d felt the need to trample all over them, but he’d never— “You aren’t supposed to—”

“I was hoping to avoid having to drive down to the city tomorrow.”

“Why would you,” she trails off as her frown darkens. “Now isn’t a good time.”

“Then tell me when that would be, Mac,” he sighs, “so I can schedule it in, because there’s never been a good time and I doubt there ever will be.”

But now is a really bad time she wants to say. She’s tired, exhausted and the ache from her earlier ill-advised workout is turning sharper, turning painful. “Jim, I don’t, I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Then don’t.” He offers her a hint of a smile, a bit of humor that’s lost on her because she knows what’s coming, another ultimatum. 

“I’ve told you what I want.” He doesn’t bother segueing. “What do you want?”

What can you give me is what he means, because what she wants is for him to stop with his incessant demands.

“Jim.”

He sighs again, working at being patient, because it’s been weeks since patient applied to either side of this conversation. “You understand how life works, right? You can’t give the entire pie to ACN, holding back a tiny sliver for Will and expect to subsist off the crumbs. Neither of you—”

“I know how it works.”

“Then why won’t,” he shakes his head, “I understand not wanting to talk to anyone at the office, but you can talk to Will.”

She squints at him, unhappy with whatever assumption he thinks he’s making. She hasn’t had the best track record lately for asking for help, she knows that, but she trusts them all. She trusts Will. She trusts Will with a lot, but this isn’t about that.

“What would you like me to say?” She isn’t baiting him; she just wants this conversation to end. 

“Hi Will, I was wondering if you could— the office— so we could spend more time together.” She hears parts of what he’s saying between her parroted reply, sharp and more angry than she knows she should be.

“Hey Will, just so you know, I love you but you’re a horrible time suck so if you could go sit in the corner and wait around to dote on me that would be great.”

“Mac. Could you, for one second, could you be serious?”

“I’m—” She glares at him but holds her tongue.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have— I knew you meant ‘to you’, me, but,” he takes a deep breath. “This is incredibly frustrating.”

She laughs bitter and dry, still angry, still ignoring the ache in her chest.

“I can’t remember the last time I called just to see how you were doing. I’m sorry. I call and I nag and I get pissed off and you haven’t once asked me to come home even though we both know you should and not just because you miss me.”

She smiles a little, not quite tearily, because he isn’t wrong about any of that.

“I know this is hard. I want to help, but you have to give me something.”

She looks away, feels the back of her jaw ache as she presses her teeth together. She had, she wanted to remind him. It had taken weeks, but along with everything else, she’d even ceded some of her media review to Sloan, The Economist, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal were now neatly arranged on her desk by the time she arrived at the office. 

“If this was just about the show, you’d have it cold, Mac, but if you’re going to insist on giving all the time you should be spending on yourself to Will, eventually you’re going to have a problem.”

“I’m not—” She wasn’t, but he had no way of knowing that. He hadn’t been here long enough to know that. She spent most nights in her own bed sleeping off the extra hours at the office her lunches with Will and her appointments required without him here to help pick up the slack.

“I know we all think we’re a little superhuman, but you can’t—”

“Jim.”

“I know this is hard.” He says gently and she snorts, tense with the effort it’s taking not to snap at him.

“You have no idea—”

“Specifically, you’re right, I don’t, because you don’t like to talk about it, but I know this isn’t easy for you, and that you’d really like me to shut up and crawl back under my rock, but I’d rather have this fight with you now instead of when it’s too late.”

“Dramatic.” She manages flatly, but the word aches and she isn’t looking at him again, fiddling with the spot on the comforter Will had managed to singe with her curling iron.

“What can I do to help, or is that the problem?”

“No.” She looks at him. “No, it’s not— it’s my job.”

“What’s your job?” He’s back to gentle, softer than he has been in weeks, having suddenly realized he’s never going to argue himself into winning this one. 

“It’s my responsibility.” She repeats like that might explain it, like that’s what he’s asking. He was talking about work but he knew better than to assume she was.

“Are you afraid he’s going to say no?”

“Jim.” That was ridiculous.

“All right, then what?”

“It’s my job. Mine.” She emphasizes, unsure how to explain without first throwing a dictionary at him:.

“No one's doubting that.” He promises and for a moment there’s a glimmer of the Jim that had pulled her through those horrible days in DC: insisting she stay at his place, going with her to her appointments, to meet with the lawyers at CNN, asking questions, pushing when she couldn’t.

“I,” she wavers wanting to give him this. He’d never accepted her thanks for all the sleepless night she’s put him through since they’d meet in Atlanta, he'd never seen a reason for it it seemed. “Sometimes I,” she fumbles. “It’s mine.”

“I’m not asking,” he stops for a moment to consider her. “I want Saturday morning with Will to be as much as an option as a Saturday at the office. I want lazy Sunday naps to happen without you feeling like you’re cheating Will. I’m not asking for an equal split. None of us are expecting you to stop living in your office, but if you don’t want Will color coding your faxes by date and relevance, find him something else to do. Can you do that, for me?”

“Yeah.” It’s not as confident or committed sounding as he’d like, she knows that, but it’s something, something more than what she’s been giving him.

“OK.” He smiles a little, dorkily and she finds herself smiling back cautiously. “Do you want me to ask Will to talk to you?”

“I,” she hesitates, worried about the precedent that would set, and then nods. “OK.”

*

“Jim said you wanted to talk to me?”

She hadn’t expected this, not so suddenly, not when she’s still half asleep, not when he’s holding a tray laden with the breakfast he’s made for her. She knows her surprise must show on her face, but if he notices she can’t tell.

He sets the tray down on the table behind her and rounds the bed to retake his spot, sitting so the mattress dips, curling her farther into the warmth he’d left behind.

“Stealing my pillow.” He teases fondly and she smiles as he brushes a hand over her shoulder, waits for her to shift closer before he tries again. “I thought he might have called you last night.”

“But you weren’t sure because I wasn’t yelling.” She offers blandly and he sighs, but doesn’t chide her for her tone. He knows this can’t be easy, whatever it is, because Jim had intervened directly. He knows it can’t be easy but he’s asking now, and she wonders why, although perhaps it’s better to get it over with before she gets up and realizes how much everything aches, how angry she is with herself for acting like a child, wasting Michael’s time.

“I need some help at the office.” She rolls her head to the side to look at him more directly. “I thought maybe I could give you some stuff to—”

“Any time Mac, you know that.” Don’t you, he doesn’t say but she nods anyway. She knew that, that wasn’t the problem.

“Whatever you think is best.” He assures her. “I’ll even toss Dantana off the terrace if you want—”

“What’s wrong with Jerry?”

“You don’t like him.”

“He’s fine.” She insists but Will only smiles. “He is.”

“‘He’s fine’ is code for I’d like to strangle him with his own tie.”

“It is not.”

“Possibly his shoe laces.”

“Will.” She protests, half-heartedly she’s willing to admit, but it’s still a protest, one that only seems to spur him on.

“You don’t trust him.”

“I don’t trust a lot of people.”

“This is different.”

“It’s fine, Will.” She insist firmly and for a moment she thinks he’s going to drop it.

“Except?”

“Nothing.”

“Except?” He tries again and she heaves a sigh.

“He’s chasing ghosts. It’s never going to go anywhere.”

***

 

She knows he’s trying. She’d arrived at his place late Saturday to find the pace of his shopping had accelerated. It was never an apology, he knew her better than that, but a reaffirmation, a reassertion that he wanted her there: the yoga mat in the bedroom, the extra pillows on the bed and on the couch, the throw rug in the living room, the new bowls in the kitchen, an extra bottle of her shampoo, spare laptop and cell phone chargers scattered around the apartment, slippers, wool socks tucked into folded blankets. 

He was trying, but that didn’t save either of them from her mounting exasperation, her irritation. She’d known he was going to have a bit of fun with the interview. She hadn’t expected him to be so indifferent to the consequences, so indifferent to her.

“I need you to apologize.”

“To who?”

“Shelly Wexler.” She repeats the name despite the blank stare, despite the fact she had known before she’d walked in to ask that he’d say no. “Will.”

“What?”

“I need you to—”

“For what?”

“For being smug.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” she shifts her weight to her other foot and frowns at him. “Imagine that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure what?” She plays along because Charlie had told her to ask, had told her to fix this and she would, somehow; she had to.

“Are you sure you aren’t the one who wants the apology?” He shrugs and she can see he knows just how much she wants to throttle him.

He wasn’t wrong. She did want an apology, or at least an acknowledgement that what he’d done, that what he kept doing wasn’t right. It wasn’t even the interviews, she didn’t mind him picking apart arguments, being dismissive, it was his smugness, the internal justification she knew he thought he had for doing it because he hadn’t been able to stop, hadn’t been able to stop needing it, that hit from the audience.

She wanted him to apologize. She wanted him to apologize for terrifying her every time he leaned in too far, yearned too much for that invisible high. He was holding an entire empire in his hands and he had no idea how quickly he could send it crashing to his feet, bring her to her knees.

“This isn’t about me.” She levels at him, although it had been on Saturday when he’d been annoyed with her irritation with him, when he hadn’t wanted to hear, again, about how she knew she was right, that he needed to stop. “Jerry's been chasing a story for a few weeks, I can’t tell you what it is, but at some point I may need you for the Red Team. Shelly, she can lead us to someone who might be able to help, but she won't unless you apologize. I need you to apologize.”

“Her movement is idiotic and she was unprepared. So as a courtesy, I was dismissive.”

“So, no?”

“No.” He agrees and she leaves with an aggravated growl.

*

She’d told him she was staying late but she hadn’t told him why. She figured he’d assume she was cleaning up the mess he’d made by being a stubborn ass and she didn’t mind him thinking that, even if this time, in the end, things had worked out. 

Neal had found Deit. She and Jerry had spent the afternoon combing through the details of his report and spent the night interviewing him. Tess had already typed up her notes, there wasn’t much left for her to do until Jerry finished his follow up, but she’d neglected the rest of her work that afternoon so she’d stayed behind while Will had gone home to sit in the proverbial corner. She hadn’t minded the thought of a few uninterrupted hours at the office until Taylor had called.

“Did you give away an interview with Romney?” He replies but she isn’t listening because she already knows that he had, doesn’t care why he had because she didn’t need this right now. “You know exactly how fucked up it is that you gave it away.”

“Mac—”

“And that you gave it to a girl you like.” She cuts in again and he sighs.

“It's not exactly like that, but it was definitely wrong and I apologize. I'll call Will.”

“Don't call Will.” She snaps not angry about that, but angry that he could be so clueless that he— “You haven’t talked to Neal, or Sloan, or Tess, or—”

“Did something happen?” There’s a note of concern in his voice but he’s being cautious, knows she’s not done chewing him out.

“Don’t call Will.”

“If he finds out another way—” 

“I'll take that chance. He,” she stops herself. “I've got to pull you off.”

“I understand.”

“Well, you know, I don't.” She disconnects the call, another call ended without warning, another bad habit she was going to miss when he was back, when he, and his insistent questions, were harder to hide from.

* 

“We need more staff.” She drops the paperwork Jim had filled out onto Charlie’s desk along with the initial memo he’d sent her the week before outlining his argument.

“All right. Why?”

She shrugs and gestures at the papers, smiles when Charlie laughs.

“Jim?”

“I pulled him off the Romney bus and—”

“Revenge or is he sucking up?”

“I honestly can’t tell.” She smiles again, this time more fondly. “It’s infuriating either way.”

“But he isn’t wrong?”

“I wouldn’t be here if he was. I suppose I need some sort of life.”

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly.” Charlie winks at her and she shakes her head.

“A couple of interns or another staffer. If Leona wants a reason to justify the extra cost I’m sure Jim’s thought of something.”

“You haven’t read it?”

“I trust him.”

“That’s not the same thing as agreeing.”

“You’ve been talking to Will.” She retakes the seat she’d started to vacate as Charlie shrugs, leaning back in his chair.

“He feels bad.”

“Not bad enough.” She says reflexively and then winces. “I know it’s not—”

“It’s complicated.”

“It’s always complicated with him. If he doesn’t stop—”

“I know. I’ll talk to him. Hang in there.”

“Yeah.” She sighs and then nods before standing. “I’ll let Jim know you’re passing on his recommendation.”

*

He does it again. It’s not the digs, the two sentences that slip out of his mouth too fast for her to stop them. It’s the hint of a smile, the smirk that slips out when he knows they’ve cut safely to commercial.

She’s fuming, furious by the time he signs off, but by then she’s already in her office, kicking at the inside of her desk, a sharp rapping of the outside of her foot against the wood to keep herself from screaming, to keep her from smashing binders, books against the corner of her desk in wounded fury.

She’s kicking hard enough that she’ll have bruises in the morning but Jim doesn’t care when he wedges his foot between hers and the desk, lets her slam her foot into his until her remorse for hurting him dulls her anger.

“Did you try telling him to stop promising?”

“I don’t think it matters. I don’t think he can stop.”

Jim sighs as she leans to lay her head on her arms and his hand slips across her shoulders, comforting. She lets him stay while she breathes deep and even, lets him rub her back while she forces her pulse to slow to a thrumming that doesn’t leave her temples pounding.

“Sloan wants you to meet her down in the gym if you’re up for it. She thinks beating the shit out of stuff helps.”

“You mean other than your foot?” She manages a weary smile and he laughs softly, shaking his head.

“Go down and see what she wants. I’ll let Will know you’ll meet him at home.”

*

That first week she goes because she knows Jim appreciates it and she isn’t sure how else to apologize for him being stupid enough to get in her way when she was pissed off.

After that she goes when she can because they’re both a little silly, she and Sloan, laughing at stupid jokes while they take turns at the heavy bag or sit sprawled out on the floor stretching. It’s half an hour out of her day but she finds she can manage it with the extra staff Leona had approved, with the naps she sneaks while Sloan’s on the air at noon.

It takes a couple of weeks but she lets Sloan start talking her into trying new things. It’s feels ridiculous, and most of it’s a complete disaster, but she tries and Sloan beams and she finds she doesn’t mind the failing as much as she usually does, but it’s always been like that with Sloan. Just try, Kenzie, meant just that, try, and so she did, most of the time.

“I can’t.” She’s being specific, can’t instead of won’t, instead of shouldn’t.

“I’m not going to let you fall.”

“No Sloan,” she tries again, slower, more patient, less anxious. “I can’t.”

“Show me?”

“Sloan.” It’s half plea half groan because she knows Sloan isn’t wrong she could try, just this once. 

It’s late, Elliot muted on the TV behind her; they’re the only two here. She could walk away or she could stay, no one would know.

“I can’t.” She insists but she takes Sloan’s arm when she offers it and steps toward the balance board, apprehensive.

“Michael will be jazzed when he doesn’t have to pick you up and throw you on.” Sloan grins and she groans.

“I can’t think about that right now.” She had been thinking about it though. It’s what had kept her here through her original panicked reaction. It was one of the things Michael had talked about working on. Her balance wasn’t bad, but on bad days, on days with stairs or slippery curbs she knows she could use the help, so when Sloan’s palm presses up into her arm she slides her foot onto the board and presses her eyes shut.

“When you’re ready.” Sloan promises and she opens her eyes reluctantly, carefully lifting her foot to set it down on the ridged plastic, fingers leaving divots in Sloan’s forearms.

***

 

It’s their first Thanksgiving together. There had been others, but neither of them had been spent together. That first year her family had been in town, her parents, her four siblings, their spouses and kids. She hadn’t asked Will to join them although she’d wished later that she had, still wished to some extent that she had, although she knows now he would’ve refused. Even then he’d known how rare those days were, with all of them together, and he wouldn’t have wanted to intrude, draw her attention away from those few fleeting hours.

The second year they’d made plans. She’d had the better kitchen back then, in the apartment he’d helped her find, so they’d loaded her fridge with food. He’d promised her a feast, but she’d been too low on the list of EPs on staff and had been expected to cover for a sick colleague when they’d called in. Will had still cooked her a feast, still cuddled up to her on the couch, but she’d been in a sour mood for the majority of the weekend, too busy at the office the rest of the time to spare much thought for the holiday, but this year, this time would be different.

They were getting out of town. Neither of them wanted to deal with the Thanksgiving crowds, the shoppers. Away from the city it would be harder to slip into old habits, harder still for someone else to find an excuse to call them back. They’d have their weekend, finally, and she relished the thought. 

He’d suggested renting a car, but she’d balked at the idea of getting stuck in traffic, the slow crawl to nowhere, and the train hadn’t seemed much more appealing, the crowded stations, the time and distance slowly eaten up. Flying, the airport, didn’t hold much appeal either, but the flight would be short, he’d promised, and they could fly back mid morning on Monday, miss most of the rush, so she’d agreed, spurred on by the thought of warmer weather, although when he’d said DC, said Dulles she’d felt a little disappointed, wondered why he was grinning.

She’d changed in Will’s office halfway through the show, Jim keeping an eye on things while they rolled from package to commercial.Thoughts of the looming break had been a relief as she’d pulled a t-shirt on under the blazer she was wearing, tugged leggings on under her pants. The week had been long despite how short it’d been.

She hadn’t expected to nod off during the flight, but as she leaned her head against Will’s shoulder she’d slipped in and out of sleep while he murmured something about the in-flight service. She’d been awake when they landed, ears popping, but not awake enough to question why he’d had a car waiting for them, a rental it turned out although she wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. Even with the city as empty as it was bound to be, she couldn’t see them leaving the hotel, let alone going much of anywhere. They could call a cab, go for a stroll, but Will had thrown their bags into the backseat as she settled in and she hadn’t asked. 

*

The car slows and she wakes, no more alert than she had been when they’d left the airport, expecting to see city lights, but the space around them is dark, the headlights bright.

“What?” She rubs a hand over her face trying to wake up. “Where? What time is it?”

“It’s almost two.” Will’s voice holds the note of warm amusement it always has for her sleepy barrage of questions. “We’re almost there.”

“You shouldn’t be driving. It’s late. You’re—”

“Five more minutes, Mac.” He soothes, reaching to lay a hand over her knee, eyes still on the road. “It’s going to get bumpy in a minute.”

They’re in the woods, she realizes that before they hit the gravel road, the trees pressed in beside them all but invisible in the dark. She asks again where they’re going, but he doesn’t want to say. She can’t see much despite the dash lights, but she knows he smiles fondly when she asks before softly reiterating that they were almost there.

The cabin emerges from the dark in a shocking display of light, the windows ablaze, the porch light on and she hears him sigh low and content. There was something about this place, although she didn’t know what, something he cherished, something that keeps his steps light as he pulls their bags from the backseat and rounds the car to usher her inside.

There isn’t much fanfare; there aren’t any more questions. The cabin’s a decent size, only one room, the bed tucked into a corner. The bed with the sheets pulled back and the pillows fluffed. The bed that she falls into almost instantaneously without prompting. She’s slept more than he has, but he’s been awake, he is awake. She’s groggy and exhausted and thankful, now, that he’d insisted she make herself comfortable for the flight because she’s already half asleep, her pants shucked, her blazer forgotten, wrinkling as she burrows into the bed.

*

She can hear him singing softly to himself as she stretches, nestles deeper into the bed. The cabin is warm, blissfully so, and she loses herself in that. The clock, time doesn’t matter, but even so she feels herself start to wonder. It was hard to know what time it was this time of year with the shorter days and change in latitude. Her watch was still tucked in her bag from the flight but her phone was there beside the bed where Will had set it and so she stretches out a hand, reaching for it.

“There’s no cell service.” At first she’s confused, but then the concern creeps in. There’s not enough alarm for panic, but she’s worried and she knows Will can tell because there’s no good morning, no tapered end to the song he’d been working through, just his reply.

“There’s a landline, the phone’s by the door, and there’s internet. Jim has the number. I asked him to email you regular updates so you won’t feel like you’ve missed something if you leave your laptop packed away for an afternoon.”

“He’s supposed to be taking time off.” She protests, sitting up, but Will only shakes his head and smiles at her; they were all supposed to be taking time off.

“He set up a voluntary round robin. He said to warn you Tess’s emails might contain recipes for mashed potatoes and turkey pot pie if she’s—”

“Will, your football.” She cuts him off concerned when she realizes the cabin is very obviously missing a TV.

“Mac—”

“There’s a game today.”

“I know. It’s all right.”

“You always—”

“I knew what I was getting into.” He reminds her gently. “I surprised you not the other way around.”

“You gave up football?” She knows she looks confused, a little befuddled, by the way he smiles, warm and sweet, amused.

“It’s only football.”

“It’s,” she frowns at him, “it’s football.”

“I’d rather be here with you.” He says with unhesitating honesty. “Even if you wanted to make it a competition it really wouldn’t be. I’d rather be here with you.”

*

She hadn’t packed for the weather, no more than she’d had to to make it from the airport to the hotel and back, but that turns out to be less of an issue than she’d anticipated much to her chagrin. It had always been a thing between the two of them, Will bundling her up like she was made of glass, her complaining that a hat, any hat, even the hat he’d bought her would ruin her hair for the day, and she really, honestly, couldn’t understand what her inability to use her arms was supposed to save her from, certainly not from mortified embarrassment.

“It’s not that bad.” He insists, biting back a smile at her grumbling. She was wearing his sweater under her coat, a shirt and a tank top under that, leggings under her pants. It had to be in the fifties at least, she knew that, but there he was brandishing her hat like he thought she would wear it.

“No,” she groans but she knows it won’t do any more good than stomping her foot would. They’d had a couple of cold days already this year, but even so she‘d thought the hat was still tucked away in her apartment, stashed carefully in a box she’d only recently begun to unpack, mementos and gifts, all the things he had given her that she hadn’t been able to part with, everything she’d had to keep, and the hat.

“You can wear this one or you can wear mine.”

He isn’t budging. She’d known that when he’d suggested the walk, when he’d thrown himself onto the bed and started nudging at her laptop, asking if Jim was getting tired of her pestering him with emails.

“It’ll be good to get out.” He’d said. “I’ll show you around.”

She’d agreed. She shouldn’t be working, she’d lasted a day without her laptop but even so she shouldn’t be working, she knew that, not when it meant someone else was, when it meant Jim was. She hadn’t agreed to the layers. She hadn’t agreed to the hat, but this isn’t a new argument for the two of them and so she acquiesces and winds her arm in his so they can trudge down the driveway to a paved road.

It turns out they’d come up the access road Wednesday night, winding their way up behind the cabin. He’d wanted to surprise her, hadn’t wanted the lights from town to wake her prematurely. The town isn’t far, a little over half a mile, so they walk along the road, Will thoughtfully kicking up gravel as she walks on the shoulder.

“It’s too early to see the lights.” He tells her when the first wreaths appear on the telephone poles, “but with most of the leaves gone there should be a decent view from the porch later on. The shops should be open if you want to pop in before lunch.”

They stop into a couple of the small shops as they pass, but it’s the diner that draws him. She can sense his anticipation and so she didn’t linger, didn’t questioned the casual way he picks out a table and pulls her chair out before sliding into his own.

“Will is that you?” She looks up at the sound of the voice, bright and curious, and watches a middle aged waitress bustle over.

“I think you have me confused with someone else, Faye.” Will grins and turns in his chair. “It’s been too long.”

“Not for me.” Faye stops beside their table, one hand on her hip. “I see you on the TV almost every night.”

Will scoffs, but the grin stays as he stands. “That hardly counts.”

“Well it isn’t my fault you haven’t shown your face around here in years.”

“It’s been a year and a half.” He corrects as Faye’s teasing testiness intensifies.

“One year eight months and some number of days. That might as well be two.”

“That’s not how math works.”

“That’s how rounding works.” Faye shoots back with a wink in Mac’s direction and Mac has to cover her mouth with her hand to hide the grin that pops up. “Can I give you a hug or are you too famous for that now?”

“I’m standing here aren’t I?” Will frowns and they both laugh, embracing.

“I’m serious about it being too long, you and Charlie both.” Faye insists as Will retakes his seat. “There was a time when I couldn’t keep the two of you out of my diner.”

“I know. That’s my fault.”

“And mine.” Mac chimes in, unwilling to lose the easiness with which Will moved, the soft happiness she hasn’t seen much of in public spaces, it’d been years, much more than two, since he’d smiled this easily, laughed as readily without a thought to restraint, to privacy.

“This is MacKenzie.” Will turns toward her to smile. “She’s clearly, solely responsible for everything I’ve ever done in my life.”

Faye shakes her head and smiles at Mac. “It’s nice to meet you, MacKenzie.”

“Mac is fine.” It’s far from automatic, this rushed suggestion, but she knows it’s always been hard for Will to remember, to say MacKenzie instead of Mac when she was in in absentia, to remember that the switch in name might cause some confusion.

“MacKenzie’s fine too.” Will reiterates lightly, but Mac doesn’t miss the careful way he lays out the words. He’d reminder her later that she didn’t have to win his friends for him; he’d never stop to think she was doing it for her own sake.

“I do like MacKenzie if that’s all right. Will and MacKenzie.” Faye smiles brightly and Mac gets the feeling that this isn’t the first time she’s said that. It certainly isn’t the first time she’s considered it, that much is clear.

“Yeah, that’s,” Mac reaches to pull her hat from her head, pulling a face as she feels her hair lift, poof as it clings to the wool, both hands automatically reaching to smooth it down as Faye’s gaze swivels to Will and Mac cuts herself off.

“Oh.” Will nods, smile suddenly shy, suddenly pleased, boyish. “I, we got engaged since I’ve seen you last.”

“Harry did say.” Faye frowns momentarily, “damn the man for being right. Congratulations, Miss MacKenzie.” She continues, bright countenance somehow brighter. ”Dessert’s on me, although Will’s going to have to cough up for his.”

“What did I do?” The question is loud, but the exasperation is for show.

“You could have, at the very least, had Charlie send me down a bottle of champagne.”

“It’s been three months. We haven’t even told—”

“How many hours have you spent in that chair—”

“About a quarter of an hour.” Will cuts in smartly and Mac smirks for him, bites her lip to stop from laughing before cutting in herself.

“Could I, if it’s not too much trouble could I get a glass of water before you two get started?” 

“Of course.” Faye shakes her head seemingly at the way she’d forgotten herself and shuffles off to return with two glasses of water and a couple of cans of Coke.

*

She’d run herself a bath in the clawfoot tub, an extravagance she hadn’t expected, but she hadn’t been surprised when Will had explained: Charlie, a bit of a joke, a gift for Nancy not yet his wife. The cabin was a bit of a bachelor pad now, a quiet place for the two men, alone or together, but the tub had remained and she’s glad for that despite the fact she’d been leery about getting in and out, about slipping.

Will hadn’t minded spotting her, hadn’t minded teasing her with jokes about yanking her towel off to ravish her on the bathroom floor while she’d laughed, clung to him when the laughter had turned to gasps. Nothing he’d said had been original, none of it particularly funny, most of it rather tame, considering, but she’s still grinning, laughing occasionally as she moves through the sliver of space that served as the living room toward their belongings.

“We could go back to the diner. The food was good.” She says fishing a clean shirt of hers out of his suitcase, pulling a sweater from her backpack. “Faye wouldn’t mind seeing you again.”

“Faye isn’t standing in a towel in the middle of my cabin.”

“I would hope not.” She pulls out a pair of slim fitting sweatpants and a pair of underwear; she wasn’t bothering with a bra if Will was intent on staying in.

“MacKenzie.”

“William.” she puts a bit of a lilt in his name, noticing she likes the way it sounds, noticing the way she laughs lightly. 

“Mac.” He was closer now, close enough that she can feel him there behind her. “Could you?”

She turns and smiles at him, at his momentary seriousness. The seriousness that can’t, here, mar the softness around his eyes.

“I want you.” He says and she reaches over to slide her hand against the curve of his jaw.

“I know.”

“Not just—”

“I know.” She cuts him off, steps closer. “I’m not prone to delusions of grandeur, but I know—”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” She smiles softly but he shakes his head, repeats himself insistently. It was like this with him sometimes. He needed her to hear it. He’d explained it once when she’d almost asked, tired of the reassurance she didn’t need: there was knowing, and there was knowing, that tiny voice inside your head.

I know sometimes you regret, you feel guilty he’d said and she hadn’t known how to argue, hadn’t known if she should, because it was more complicated than that. It was always more complicated than that.

“OK.” She accepts and his smile comes back, warms up, quivers in the corners with a private amusement.

“Could I persuade you to lose the towel?”

“You have clothes on.” She protests, skipping the usual argument over the cold. She’d heard him stoke the fire in the stove while she was in the bath and she could feel the heat now, hot against her bare skin.

She watches him lose his shoes, toeing them off before he perches on the edge of the bed to pull his socks off one at a time, making an unself-conscious show of it. Not to make a point, but to let her watch, marvel, today at least, at the easy way he moved, see the grace she lacked even without impatient trembling fingers.

He pulls off his sweater and she feels her fingers start to tingle in anticipation of the feeling of the button on his jeans.

She shifts a little closer, even knowing she’s going to have to wait she can’t resist. She moves closer, close enough that he can reach out and pull her carefully to stand between his splayed knees.

She whimpers with the impatience of it all and he soothes her, a hand at the bottom hem of her towel then a finger dragged down the side of her neck.

She can feel her teeth against her lip, an echo of the kiss she knows is coming, but he’s still too careful in the way he’s watching her to bring it to pass. He wanted to take his time now that he has her here all to himself, the whole afternoon spread out before them without the drag of tired muscles and the ever present threat of a ringing phone.

“It’s Friday.” She lets herself grin at the novelty, the tiny tremble to the words she knows he hasn’t missed, his eyes dark and wide, watching the way she shivers as he brushes his fingers experimentally over bare skin.

“Shirt,” she says, and says again so that he chuckles, pulls his hands away from her to tug the fabric free from the waistband of his pants, toss it carelessly behind her.

He’s slow and deliberate, patient in the way he insisted on being when she wasn’t. He refuses to lose his pants, despite her badgering, until she flops crosswise on the bed behind him with an impatient groan, plucking at the blanket behind him as he stands.

*

He was always so careful, delighting in the ease with which he drove her to the point of distraction, but even so she doesn’t know why she hadn’t noticed before, hadn’t been able to place it before, the lingering whiff of the bath salts she had poured in the tub. He hadn’t been teasing her then, hadn’t been plying her with soft kisses and even softer touches.

“Did you,” she shifts enough to look up, check that he’s still awake, his head nested in the pillow she’d abandoned for the warmth of his chest, before continuing. “You brought the stuff for the bath?”

“It isn’t something Charlie’s likely to keep on hand.” There’s a rumble under the words, a not quite chuckle that makes her smile, the thought that Charlie might, that he would, despite the fact they both knew he wouldn’t. 

“Where? I don’t recognize it.” She stops to consider the statement. “Or maybe.”

“Or maybe?” The rumble’s still there. “The hotel.”

The statement itself doesn’t mean anything, and yet it does, she remembers suddenly, years ago the weekend sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Will had taken part of Friday off to help her with her with her Christmas shopping— she’d been so frantically worried about getting everything in the mail on time— but also, it’d turned out, to pack her a bag so he could surprise her with a weekend away.

They hadn’t gone far, only a couple of blocks south of the studio, but it’d been enough. He’d booked her an afternoon at the spa around the corner from their hotel and she’d returned to their room in a state of boneless bliss. There’d been a soaking tub at the spa. Magical she’d called it and he’d remembered. She could remember the smell now vividly. “How did you?”

“I called them the week after New Years. It took some digging but I found the note I‘d made.”

“You,” she knows her smile is tinged with sadness now. “That was sweet.”

“Yeah.” He snorts a little, at what she isn’t quite sure, and brushes a hand over her head. “I’ve heard great things about a soak in that tub.”

“Like the great sex afterwards?” She laughs as she asks and she feels his laughter rumble through him in response.

“Something like that.”

*

They go back into town for the final time on Sunday for an early dinner. Faye teases, Will laughs, and Mac ends up with another free dessert, ends her night sprawled out on the bed back in the cabin letting his hands slide up past the hem of her sweater, down the curves of her calves that he bares with impatient shoves at the legs of the pajama pants she’d insisted on borrowing from him.

The heat from the fire feels magical, more radiant and warm than any warmth she remembers feeling in the city, his exploration unhindered by her usual dive for the covers, the loose sheet, the blanket she carted around like a cape despite how high he turned the heat.

He’s a little drunk on it all she thinks, although she probably is too: the soft and rough of his hands, the strength of his fingers, the gentleness of his palms. He could pull her apart and she wouldn’t think to stop him, not when she so deeply craved this.

She’s always loved the moments when his skin met hers, when their hands brushed or he reached to tuck her hair behind her ear. Unassuming quiet gestures, she knew he didn’t think much of them, these simple points of physical connection, but they lit up a part of her that she’d always been afraid to name. Not desire, though Will had taught her how beautiful that could be, but a place filled more often with a darkness she hadn’t learned to dispel. She’d thought Will would be the one to fill it in, to seal it off, and in a way he had, but not because he’d loved her, but because for an instant he hadn’t.

She considers trying to explain again, here where he feels free and she feels an unfamiliar comfort, but already she finds herself hanging on too tightly, trying not to think of the flight they have to catch in the morning, the sour snapping Jim was going to have to put up with at the office when she couldn’t quite admit she’d needed more time away. She doesn’t want to tarnish this, the firelight and the lightness of his touch, so she rolls over and reaches to run her hand through his hair as his fingers skate up her ribs.

“I love it here.” She whispers and he smiles, considers.

“But?” He prompts gently, honestly, and she lets out a sigh as his head tips to one side, an intentionally comedic move, but her smile is a little too slow, her laugh too hollow. “But you don’t want to talk about it?”

“It’s,” she doesn’t want to tell him no, but she can’t say yes either.

“I don’t,” she has to stop herself from repeating the words ad nauseam, not in affirmation, but in a stutter, a start to a sentence she can’t finish. 

“It doesn’t have to be— it can just feel good.” He smiles a little, encouraging.

She knows what he means, that it doesn’t have to be complicated, that it can just be sex, just be physical, be something they get a little lost in, something they don’t try and find their way out of. 

She wants that. She wants that so badly, but there had been Faye and the smiles and the reminders of a life outside of this, before this, before her. After her, before now. There had been a reminder, a reminder turned excuse turned something she can’t let go of because he was happy here, not strained the way he could be, the way he had been, and she thinks maybe it won’t kill her so much to see that light dim a little when she knows she’s not tearing away the last of his happiness.

“I don’t want to talk about Brian, again.” She means to say, realizing too late that Wade had popped out instead, realized too late that she’d had her eyes pressed shut when she’d said it.

“What about Wade?” He asks like he hadn’t heard her say don’t, had missed every not and no, every negative she hadn’t felt the need to say.

“I don’t.” She puts the words out there but there’s no conviction behind them. They’re almost a question so he shifts, slides back so he can sit and she can lean into him, ignore him.

She can’t ignore him.

“Wade and I,” she forces herself to swallow a couple of times. “We never. I don’t think he. It’s kind of a turn off when you know. Maybe.”

That’s a lie and she knows eventually he’ll correct her, tell her what she already knows, that if that were true, if it wasn’t conjecture, then she deserved better than that, but that hadn’t mattered then and she’s not entirely sure it matters now. Will had never minded, had never cared, would never care about the things she couldn’t, wouldn’t do, but he could, should understand her fear that someone might.

Before Brian she’d never strayed much past frantic kissing, the occasional half-naked fumbling in the dark, one or both of them a little drunk. She hadn’t wanted to raise expectations, hadn’t had the time, hadn't wanted to risk the kind of relationship that might withstand that sort of scrutiny. With Brian she’d thought she’d gotten lucky. He was kind to her, if not always considerate, and he’d wanted her with a single-minded focus that she’d found irresistible. 

Wade hadn’t been like that, but he’d known things about her that Brian hadn’t. She’d wanted him to know, if not the details then the broad strokes. She hadn’t wanted to get caught up again, hadn’t wanted him to use her like that. She hadn’t considered he might use her in other ways.

She and Will had talked about this in a vague, wandering sort of way in those first few summer days, reacquainting themselves, drawing together a past to span the time between them. She’d kept away from any specifics, not wanting him to confuse choice with fear, with expectation or penance, but there are things she now knows she should’ve told him, not for his sake, but for her own. Things she could tell him if she just stopped— “We never slept together. It wasn’t, it wasn’t anything, because of anything. We just never. I thought you might want to know.”

“All right.” He says impassively like she’s told him they were out of milk, like she needed to make a stop on the way into the office, like she wasn’t pretending that this is what upset her, what might upset him.

“It’s not because I thought, or you— it’s. I had enough other stuff.”

He hums, listening, but there’s something missing, although she doesn’t realize what until she feels the first of the tears tickling the inside of her nose.

“You don’t care.”

“About what?” He asks, knowing that’s a dangerous thing to agree to. “Mac, what you did or didn’t do with your sex life isn’t any of my business. I didn’t get a say.”

“But,” she protests wishing they had more space, wishing there was someplace else she could be, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that before she’d opened her mouth. She hasn’t cried, not like this, not in front of him since that day in his office last winter, but she’s snivelling, dredging up things she hadn’t ever wanted to say. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want Wade, Brian, ruining another perfect moment between them.

“He’s an idiot. They’re fucking idiots. Both of them. I’d like to knock their heads together.” Will smiles a little but she knows he isn’t joking. She’d never doubted that he hated that they’d hurt her. “But I don’t think that’s what you want right now.”

“I cheated on you.”

“You lied about it.” He reminds her of the relevant point gently. “It was never about the sex.”

“No.” She sniffs, letting him wrap his arms around her, it hadn’t been, not for either of them. She’d betrayed him, betrayed herself. She could see that now with a clarity that made her dizzy with the fear of knowing that she could do it again, might do it again.

“I’m sorry I—” She pauses, already trying to push the way he’d said lied— lie, lying— from her head, tried to ignore the way it echoed every time she left something unsaid. “I shouldn’t— I’m sorry, I’m ruining—”

“You’re not ruining anything.” He assures her softly, gently as she curls into his embrace. “I did have a date with the box of brownie mix but it looks like I’ve been stood up.”

“You. What?” She could push him, turn him back toward their conversation. She should, she knows that, but there isn’t anything she wants to say, there hadn’t been anything she’d wanted to say. She’d wanted this, the warmth of the two of them curled together.

“It’s all right. I happen to know someone who’s a lot sweeter. I’m sure she’s available. That box of brownie mix is in for a doozie though if she ever shows up.”

“Is that right?” Already she can feel several of his fingers sliding up the ridges of her spine, toward the nape of her neck, toward her jaw. He’s intending to kiss her, leave her a little breathless, leave her distracted long enough to get the batter mixed and in the pan before she wanders over to do away with his handiwork, her finger skimming the top of batter, leaving divots in the finished brownies if he wasn’t careful.

“Total massacre,” he agrees, nuzzling the side of her neck, “the brownies and my eardrums.”

“Your,” she starts to ask before she shrieks as he topples them both back onto the bed, Will shaking his head to clear the ringing from his ear, her shriek still echoing lightly in the air.


	2. Chapter 2

She’d tried the first time, back toward the end of October to plan something nice for him, but he’d taken one look at the envelope in her hand and wrapped her in a hug. 

“You don’t owe me anything, not happiness, not love, not even being here.” He had promised into her hair. All he could ask for, all he wanted was for her to be here, with him, for as long as he could have her, for as long as she wanted.

He’d taken the tickets to the show, because she’d insisted, because she’d gotten a little loud, a little indignant. It wasn’t fair that he insisted she have friends, that he insisted on doing things for her when she couldn’t do the same for him. So now with the holidays over and the trinkets— the records, the guitar picks, the sweaters— exchanged, she was trying again.

“Mac, what’s this?” 

She hears him the first time, but the door to his office is sliding shut beside her so she ignores him, hoping he’ll let it drop. She hadn’t intended on being anywhere near his office after she’d left the tickets, but he’d all but cornered her after the rundown and she hadn’t been able to extricate herself fast enough.

“Mac?”

She’s past the door to Don’s office but she stops and turns back toward him, raising her eyebrows in a silent question as he gestures to her.

“What’s this?” He asks again when she steps through his door and she’s careful to keep her face neutral in its curiosity.

“What is it?”

“That’s,” he sighs and then frowns at her, not nearly as serious as he’d like her to think, before flipping open the flap to peer inside. “Saturday.”

“Huh.” She says when he glances at her pointedly before pulling out the tickets.

“Conveniently the same day you made plans with Jim.”

“At your insistence.” She reminds him.

“You haven’t seen him in weeks.”

“I see him every day.”

“That’s not the same—”

“Charlie’s free,” she interrupts, unwilling to hear that particular argument rehashed, “although he’s not going if he can’t pay for dinner.”

“MacKenzie.”

“They weren’t too expensive, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She tells him, knowing full well he could’ve afforded much better seats, that his name alone was liable to get him much better seats, but she’d done what she could and Charlie had offered to cover dinner for the same reason: they cared.

“I...” She can see that he’s conflicted, pleased and a little worried. She knew he wasn’t worried that she thought he loved her out of some sort of obligation, or conversely that she felt obligated to return his affection in payment for the care he showed. That would’ve been simple, uncomplicated, something time would’ve smoothed over.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Make sure Charlie gets his ticket though. He’s looking forward to—”

“Mac.”

“I’m not doing this because I have to. I want to. Please let me.” She narrows her eyes at him a bit, hoping that if she holds her ground he won’t argue. It’s uncomfortable territory for both of them: Will uncomfortable with his wealth, her with the careful accounting she was forever forced to do, too stubborn in her newly won financial independence to let him help.

“OK.” He agrees despite his hesitance and she keeps her eyes narrowed. “We’ll go. It’ll be nice. Just don’t go crowing about being right about the friends thing.”

The friends thing. She almost laughs. He was forever insisting she spend time with her friends while whining about her making him have lunch with her brother or spend the night out with Charlie even though they both knew he appreciated it.

“Fine, but don’t you dare try and tell me you had a miserable time. You know I won’t believe you anyway.”

 

***

 

“The Correspondents’ Dinner.” She echoes to make sure she’s heard him right. “You hate the Correspondents’ Dinner, you complain about it for weeks whether or not you even go. Last year—”

“I thought we could go.” He repeats like he hadn’t just said that. “Rub some elbows, talk to,” he stops when Sloan walks in.

“You asked her?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He deadpans but there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes and Mac knows she’s still frowning at him in disbelief, not caring that it’s more than enough for Sloan to pick up on. She knows he knows she hates the dinner too, the required dress, the venue, the standing around for hours, but she also knows he’s asking because he knows he’ll get less of an argument from her if this is where he starts, not only because it was a work event, a probable maybe, but because it made every other suggestion look more appealing.

It wasn't that she hated fancy dinners, she liked some of them, sometimes, when she didn't have to worry about navigating them in a professional capacity, when the crowd was more familiar face than stranger. She found them awkward, arduous, the task of pulling everything together ahead of time even more so. She’d always prefer a nice night night out with Will or Sloan, even with heels, to the anxiety of worrying about stumbling or the very special guest she just had to meet standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

“I told you I was going.” Sloan says in a voice that clearly illustrates how much of an idiot she thinks he is. “I told you.” She insists firmly before picking up a stack of folders and whacking him with it, first in the shoulder and then upside the head, before turning to Mac with a look of consideration.

”Do you think that’s? No.” She decides for herself, whacking Will one final time. “That’s better.”

“Why are you hitting me?” Will raises a cautious arm, but Sloan sets the stack of files back on the corner of Mac’s desk.

“I was closer. I thought I’d save us some time.”

“She doesn’t hit as hard as you.” He whines and Sloan holds back a smile.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We’ve been practicing.”

“Oh good. That’s exactly what we need.”

“What we need is a new blazer.” Sloan takes a seat and scoots the chair over to Mac’s desk. “Don still won’t let me liberate one from wardrobe. I told him he was going to have to if he didn’t want to hear you complaining about how—”

“Yeah,” Mac cuts in knowing exactly what she’s doing: preempting Will, putting space between his request and the arduous task of finding a dress, a pair of shoes, buying her time to find an excuse if she wanted one. “I don’t think I’m—”

“Kenzie.” There’s real disappointment there and she wonders if that’s because she thinks the protest is genuine or if Will’s not looking put out enough. “You said—”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She glances at Will, for a way out, for a reaction, she isn’t sure. He looks concerned. She knows he hates to get between the two of them, particularly when the time they spend together outside the office is so rare, when they haven’t spent a day out together in months. She knew Sloan was banking on that.

“If the two of you have plans— there’s time.” Two months or two days, there wasn’t much difference when you worked in news, when things popped up when you least wanted them to, he knew that. He knew he was feeding her another excuse, but she also knew it wasn’t about the dinner, that dinner, and so she doesn’t comment and smiles instead, playing along with both of them.

*

“Hurry up.” She’s already irritated, fussy, growing more irritated the longer he takes, the more he insists that they didn’t have to do this now when he knows she does, because if she waits it’ll be April and she’ll be cursing her closet wishing she’d kept the gown from the night she’d met Wade.

“Mac,” he tries again but she only glares at him as he fumbles with his jacket, sighing. She didn’t normally insist on taking him shopping, she normally didn’t ask, she can’t remember ever asking him, not for something like this, not something fancy and expensive, not something that meant the same half dozen questions, and the same awkward explanations: too swishy, too tight, too heavy, it needs to be longer, but not too long, I’m not sure about the shoes, the heels, no it really does need to be floor length, less flowy.

She could let him off the hook. She could forget the whole thing, she could wait it out and oops what do you mean the dinner’s next week? He wouldn’t hold it against her. He wouldn’t even ask what had happened, but he had asked and she would need another dress eventually, inevitably, so he might as well come along even if it meant asking Sloan to lie if it came up, if he asked: a scheduling fluke, a mishap, Sloan can’t make it until noon, you’re coming with me, stop arguing, stop— “Can we go now?”

*

Sloan has a table waiting, waving them over before the hostess can even ask.

“I ordered a couple of appetizers and a salad.” She slides over in the booth so Mac can sit while Will contends with the bags, the boxes across from them. “I stopped and picked up a couple of things.”

A couple of things turned out to be everything Sloan had scoped out online after Mac had texted her, or as the story went, after she’d texted Mac. She’d also stopped and made them an appointment at Cuti-cles, a revelation that made Will’s eyebrows rise, either because of the timing of it all or because he couldn’t believe Sloan would do such a thing to him, but he hadn’t said a word as they’d filed into the salon and he’d found a place to sit at the front with all of Sloan’s bags and the coat she’d so helpfully deposited in his lap.

“You don’t have to stick it to him.” Mac offers as they’re looking over colors. Sloan, as always trying to talk her into something more adventurous than the nude tones and pale pinks she normally chose.

“Do something fun on your toes.” Sloan requests and Mac glances over surprised.

“Did I forget to mention that part?”

“Sloan.” There’s a glimmer of a smile despite the warning. It was still a novelty, this extra extravagance: the smoothed over callouses, the tiny splashes of color, the lack of uncertainty, self-consciousness.

“He’s going to have to wait for me. You might as well enjoy yourself. And yes I do,” she picks up a bottle of shimmering black polish and turns it experimentally, “have to stick it to him. It makes him feel better. It amuses you.”

“It does not.” She protests despite already knowing that she hasn’t stopped smiling since the check had arrived at their table and Sloan had held out her hand with a satisfied smirk as Will had dug in his pocket for his wallet with a look of well-worn exasperation. He hadn’t expected to be paying for lunch, Sloan had picked the place, but they both knew he didn’t mind, not really, even if he found her way of asking irksome.

“You like it when he looks properly chastised. It’s very contrite. And a bit sassy.” Sloan tacks on and Mac can’t help but laugh at the mischievous look that flickers across her face.

*

“Sloan's really going to give me a hard time about this isn't she?”

She looks down at the end of the bed to where he’s sitting by her feet and shakes her head before patting the bed beside her. 

“She’s— she’s being protective. She learned that from you.” She smiles as he settles in beside her, sliding his arm around her as she leans into him.

“Me?” He scoffs and she almost laughs, sighing contentedly as his fingers tickle the side of her neck, brushing her hair off her shoulder.

“I went with her, she was looking for a pair of shoes. It was a while ago. Last spring.” She considers before shrugging a shoulder. “We’d been to a couple of stores. She’d found a few things she liked but none of them were, they weren’t exactly what she wanted so we stopped at one last store, one of those giant warehouse type places. I don’t know what it was, it wasn’t any one thing, it wasn’t anything but,” she slouches, presses her ear to his chest, listens to him breathe, deep and even, such a contrast to the sharp spike of anxiety that had just shot through her. She didn’t need to tell him. She didn’t need to explain, not like this, but she should in some way she knows that. He wanted to understand; he needed her to explain.

“She shoved a packet of tissues under the stall door then made me sit on the counter next to the sink so she could fix my makeup. We went around the corner and shared a pizza. She’s never mentioned it, but— it’s hard. Sometimes I...”

“Sorry isn’t the right word.” He murmurs and she smiles at the memory of all those long ago stumbles, the fumbling for words that had suddenly evaporated from their collective vocabulary. “I’m sympathetic, makes me sound like a dick.”

“You are a dick.” She manages to tease and she hears him laugh, feels his fingers tangle in her hair.

“There was a better way to ask and I knew that. I am sorry about that.”

“I would’ve told you no.”

“You should have.”

She twists around, pressing her head back to look up at him. “Will?”

He smiles at her softly and runs his thumb along the curve under her eye. “I should have said, ‘hey come with me to a fancy dress party so I can be enthralled while people ask me the same three questions fifty times over and I hardly notice because I’m too busy staring at you.’”

Her frown is unconvinced but he only smiles more, brushes her bangs off her forehead. “You’re so much better at that sort of thing than I am.”

“I smile too much and when I can’t take it anymore I sit in the corner and pray the next person who walks by won’t recognize me from somewhere.” She complains. “You like the attention.”

“Grandstanding isn’t the same thing as networking. You’ve met more people based on merit than—” he pauses to draw a line down her nose, “I want to see you in a fancy dress.”

“So you can peel it off me?” She smiles at him, smirking a little when it’s clear he can’t deny it.

“Only after you lose the shoes.” He promises sincerely, still obviously caught up in the idea of the dress and she laughs.

“Sloan has tickets to a gala next month. She said she could get her hands on another if you want to come with us. They’ll be more socialites than journalists but I’ll be wearing a fancy dress and Sloan won’t mind if we sneak out early.”

***

 

“Mac can I talk to you for a minute? “Jim’s at the back of the control room, his head poking in through the door. "Tess, can you?"

"Yeah."

Mac turns back to look at him with a frown. He knew now wasn't a good time but she doesn't stop to think to ask him what he needs until she's following him through the emergency doors into the hall behind the studio.

“What?”

“In here.” Jim has a door propped open with his foot. It's an old soundbooth. Even empty the space is small, but it's private, possibly the only truly private space on this floor, novelty worth the tight squeeze.

“You're testy.” It's a fact, not a judgement but she glares at him anyway as she roughly takes a seat on the floor, knees drawn up so he can crouch beside her in front of the door. “Are you and Will—”

“It’s day number twelve of I haven’t left the office before eleven. So, no, this isn’t about Will.”

“So this is day number what of I’m sleeping worse than usual?”

“Too many.” She admits somewhat hostilely, but honestly, and Jim nods, pleased that this time he hadn’t had to ask twice.

"Will wants you to take a day off?" It's a question, but she knows he already knows. Will had told him before he'd said anything to her. Will had let that slip; neither of them had bothered to ask her what she thought of the possibility.

Will had made it sound like a suggestion in the car on the way in to work that morning. A break he’d posited, although the tone of his voice hadn’t left much room for argument; it’d been light, but there hadn’t been a corresponding glimmer in his eye. He hadn’t been teasing, hadn’t been asking. Since Jim had come back she hadn’t minded the occasional reminder that she was pushing a little too hard even for her, but this rubbed her the wrong way, riled her up.

“He’s not trying to make a big romantic gesture if that’s what you’re hoping for; he’s cranky that most days I’ve been at the office before he’s even gotten up.”

“He’s worried about you. You could use a break. You could use the rest.”

He emphasizes the final point and she snorts, rolls her head across her shoulders. “He wouldn’t have to ask for that. All he’d have to do is turn on ESPN.”

“Anywhere in the apartment?”

She shrugs. She normally tried to watch at least part of whatever game it was with him even if she worked or slept through most of it. She liked that the games gave them both of a bit of a break, cheered up his week regardless of how it’d been going. “He’s not planning on lounging around. He wants to go out, look at flowers, cakes, real estate listings.” She adds the last one with a sour frown. 

“He thinks I’m avoiding him.” She was, but not because of any of that, Jim knew that.

“Did you tell him about—”

“He knows about Marie.”

“Not the news story, Mac. Journalists, especially foreign journalists, being targeted by a dictator is a big deal around here. He’d have heard about it even if Kendra hadn’t told him when she went looking for you.” Even if they hadn’t put it on the air he means, because it’d been there. She’d written the copy herself, two foreign journalists, targeted, killed, by the Syrian regime.

“I didn’t know her, Jim. Neither did you.”

“No, but we’d both heard the name, both know people who knew her, who looked up to her.”

“People die in warzones. That’s what happens.” It sounds impassive coming out of her mouth but she knows he isn’t going to buy it for a second. He knows she’s upset, been upset, been trying to deal with whatever it was by not dealing with it as far as he was concerned and she wasn’t about to tell him otherwise. She’d rather have him worrying about something he thought he could fix. “I can’t— I have to live my life.”

“And sometimes that means taking a break.”

“I don’t have time to— Will,” she stops with an aggravated sigh. “He’s so happy with all the little details. All the things I thought I’d be the one to care about.”

“Have you tried—”

“It’s always not now. Everything. Packing up my apartment, the wedding, our new place, dinner at Fig & Olive, it’s always later. I can’t always tell him later.”

“Maybe—”

“I know you told him you’d cover for me if you needed to, Jim.”

“Because it’s starting to look like you could keep the neighborhood Starbucks open with the amount of coffee you’ll be needing to stay awake.” He looks abashed, more concerned than she liked him to be. “I know now really isn’t a great time to be—”

“Having this conversation.” She smirks a little before glancing down at her watch.

“Tess—”

“I’m not worried about Tess. You know Will hates when I—”

“He hates when you stand there yammering too.”

She sighs because he isn’t wrong and holds out a hand so he can pull her to her feet. “If you want to argue with someone talk to Will, but wait till he’s off the air. I don’t need Reese breathing down my neck because he scowled at the camera for a millisecond.”

*

She catches sight of Will out of the corner of her eye tugging a sweater down into place as he moves toward her. She should look up and smile, offer him something, but she keeps her eyes fixed on the papers she has scattered across the dining table.

“Your brother called. He wants to go out for drinks and,” he pauses to make a face, she assumes, at Steve’s inelegant insistence that she stay behind, “do stuff, guy stuff. I told him I had to ask you first.”

“Go,” she glances up before adding another set of numbers to the stats she’s compiling. “Have fun.”

“All right.” He pauses for a moment. “I told Jim to stop by and look through some of this.” His fingers skirt the edge of a couple of sheets of paper before she feels the pressure of his lips against the top of her head. “I should be back around eleven. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.” She says although they both know she won’t. She would send Jim on a half-baked errand before she interrupted his night out, the night out she’d asked Jim to engineer without implicating either of them.

“Should I bring dinner?” He’s stalling now, trying to draw her out and she sighs before turning toward where he’s standing by the kitchen.

“Jim likes to feed me. Have a good time. Tell Steve I said hi.”

“Yeah.” He smiles when she doesn’t say anything else and then turns to round the corner.

*

Jim shows up and she listens to him in the kitchen, listens to him pad into the bedroom and then back to the kitchen again before he stops to peer over her shoulder.

“No,” he says plucking her pen from her hand even as she reaches to stop him and tosses it to the other end of the table.

“That’s mine. Jim. I was working.”

“That’s not work.” He hasn’t had more than a glimpse of the mess on the table, but the fact that she’s making a mess here and not at the office is enough for him to know that. Will wouldn’t ask her what she was working on, but someone at the office might, and she didn’t have a particularly solid answer to any of the accompanying questions.

“That has to be at least two binders worth of paper.”

“That’s less than a ream of paper.” She disagrees squinting at the detritus she’d been combing through all day. Somewhere under it all were the shells of the two and a half binders she’d emptied out before abandoning her search.

“There are five hundred sheets in a ream, Mac.” He says like they haven’t had this conversation half a dozen times in the past. “I know Jenna has them all paginated and indexed for you now, but that doesn’t mean—”

“I couldn’t find it.”

“You couldn’t find what?”

“I don’t know.” She stands and turns toward him not bothering to hide her distress. “I don’t—”

“It’s all right.” He quiets her gently, pulling her chair out a bit so she’ll sit while he walks to the other end of the table to retrieve her pen. Returning, he picks up the legal pad she’d been using and frowns at the list she’d been making, a written manifestation of the mental list she’s been keeping for years: places, dates, times, war, famine, natural disaster, number of dead, civilian and military. The psychologist in DC hadn’t liked this particular list, hadn’t wanted to understand that it was her way of keeping things organized, compartmentalized. She had weeks and months of this, coping with the worst days of other people’s lives. She could deal with it, leave it there, but that wasn’t what she needed today.

Marie. The list started with Marie. Jim had always copied the list over for her chronologically; the lack of space at the top reflecting an optimistic hope that there was no room in his life for more death. Overseas she’d been more pragmatic, but after coming home she’d seen the importance of that fragile desire and started to do the same.

He sets the list down, sighing and she looks up at that tender look he always has when they were alone and he knows she’s hurting. “We should clean this up.”

“Can we eat first?”

He shrugs and then nods. “I’ll move the table in the living room.”

*

The coffee table is low and squat, warm wood with beveled edges. It’s nothing like the glass table Will had had before and she figures that’s why he’d bought this one. It’s perfect for dinners like this, her and Jim sitting on cushions, reaching back and forth to steal food off one another’s plates. They keep it stored against the wall, under the TV, until Jim shows up or she needs it for something else. They keep it tucked away even though its blunt edges aren’t likely to leave bruises on her shins when she stumbles and it’s solid enough that she can see it in the dark of a city night.

“I can’t make baingan bharta.” He reminds her as if she isn’t frowning at him like she doesn’t care and he laughs. “I can’t smoke eggplant without smoking out my neighbors.”

“You’ve made kebabs.”

“I own a grill pan.”

“They were good.”

“They’re not smoked eggplants.”

She pushes her lower lip up into a pout and then reaches to snatch another piece of naan from his plate.

“Next time can we have the masala with the,” she pauses to find the English word, “the speckled beans?”

“Black-eyed peas,” he corrects, amused. “Since I can’t smoke you eggplant, or buy you bitter melon until this summer, I suppose I could add boring peas to the shopping list.”

“And okra?”

“You hate okra.”

“It’s not so bad.” She shakes her head at him. “It’s a little slimy. Can you bring some for Carlos too?”

“Okra or the peas?” Jim looks skeptical on both fronts and she shrugs.

“Sometimes we talk about food. He mentioned missing his grandma’s cooking. I know it wouldn’t be the same thing, but there aren’t a lot of Dominican places in the city.”

“You talk about his family but he still won’t tell you his name.” Jim’s amusement moves on from the food.

“He says he likes Carlos.”

“Will like Carlos.”

“Will likes when Carlos calls me ma’am.”

“Which as far as he knows Carlos does.”

“Yeah,” she shakes her head, laughing at the way Jim’s grinning. “He’s going to be so disappointed when he realizes Carlos knows better than to try and out stubborn me.”

“I’ve heard you chew Will out.” Jim shakes his head, carefully scooping up another clump of rice. “I’m surprised he hasn’t driven you all into a stop sign out of pure fright.”

“Carlos is very professional.”

“And discreet.” Jim agrees and she narrows her eyes at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Will has no idea what time you’ve been heading into the office. You could head uptown and pick up Sloan at that hour.”

“I have work to do.” She reminds him, smile slipping from her face.

“This isn’t about Marie?”

She softens at the sight of his confusion, at his hesitance as he thinks back over the last few weeks.

“It isn’t.” She admits softly, not wanting to give him time to make this into something it wasn’t. “I’ve been working on Jerry’s story.” She sighs and pulls her hand back to rub at her nose. “I didn’t want to say anything. I can’t— I need you for the Red Team and Charlie says— It’s going to be another couple of weeks, another year, who the hell knows. There wasn’t a point in saying anything.”

“Except I was worried.”

“You still would’ve worried.”

“But I could have,” he protests with a groan. They both know it wouldn’t have made a difference. He still would’ve worried, still worried more about the reminder of the people they’d lost than the story that, even six months down the line, felt more phantom than real.

***

 

“I promised Will I would talk to you.” Sloan confesses conversationally as she bends back to flop onto the floor, spreading her legs so she looked like a starfish from where Mac was standing by the rack of weights at the wall.

“About what?” She stops and sits by Sloan’s feet, leaning forward a bit to press her palms into the floor by Sloan’s ankles.

“He says your apartment’s a bad investment.”

“He said that or you did?”

“He did and then asked me if I agreed. It’s an expensive storage locker.”

“It’s not,” she stops to sigh, bite back the argument she was sick of having. Sloan wasn’t wrong, the place was expensive. She’d needed a place on short notice, with an elevator, close to the office. There hadn’t been a lot of options, even when she’d looked later, when she’d looked into moving, she hadn’t done much better, the flexible lease term, and the furniture a welcome enough addition that they’d spoiled the hunt, left her with what she’d already had. “It’s not like that. It’s complicated.”

“I need Will’s credit card complicated?”

“No.” She snaps, knowing she sounds a little wounded at the implication.

Sloan sits up looking apologetic and Mac shakes her head, pulls the hem of Sloan’s pant leg straighter.

“It doesn’t have to be complicated.” She offers with the patient gentleness Mac always appreciated. She may spend a lot of her time rolling her eyes at Mac’s antics but it was always teasing, more gentle reminder than judgement.

“It’s...”

“Have you tried explaining?”

“You sound like Jim.” 

“Have you?”

Sloan isn’t pushing, only asking, but Mac’s irritated now with Will for pushing this on them, for souring what little time the two of them had to spend together. “No, and you're not explaining either. Promise me, Sloan.” She pries irritably. “You can't say anything.”

“Can I tell him we talked?”

“You’re going to have to.” She sighs and Sloan offers her a smile.

“He’s trying to help.”

“It’s my apartment.”

“I’ll give him a lecture on non-market values: geographic proximity, emotional attachment. That should shut him up for awhile."

***

 

She’d known it was going to be one of those night when Will had stumbled with the lead in. She’d teased him about it but there had been something— not the tone of his voice, that had come later— but something that had made the bottom of her stomach drop long before she’d heard the news about John McAvoy, long before Charlie had shown her the manifest.

She knows Neal’s only doing his job but it’s been months of this and if she loses her temper, tells Will to forget about the fucking tweet and everything else she can’t blame herself, she can’t really blame Neal either, even if she does. There was a reason Charlie still wouldn’t let Will anywhere near a building with a focus group, wouldn’t let him see the briefings from advertisers, argued incessantly with Reese about the numbers well out of earshot of them both. She’d known it wouldn’t change, knew it wouldn’t stop, but had hoped that it would.

The kid in hair and makeup, Jesse, his sharp “why are you acting like such a bitch” hadn’t budged the raw gnawing. There had been a time when an accusation like that, that tone of voice would’ve made her conciliatory, as worried as she would’ve been about her job, about being taken seriously, but it’s been too long since she’s seen herself as any sort of angel, if she ever had, too long since she’d had the time to care about the feelings of people who fundamentally disagreed with her, particularly when Will seemed to think he had all the time in the world to do just that.

She’d killed the segment. She’d been trying to be kind saying it was bumped, but the veneer wears a bit thin as he talks, and while she should keep her mouth shut, there was only so much she couldn’t say in one night and her quota was almost up.

She’s still annoyed, still pushy when she tells Will to call his dad. She knows he’s been wanting to try again, to try and find some peace so she pushes, insists in a way she wouldn’t have on any other night, pleased when he finally listens, pleased until he tells her, so calmly, so blandly that his father has died. 

The words stop the constant whirring in her head for a second, two. She’d always understood his need for approval, the fear of disappointment, the need to prove himself. She could understand that impulse in particular, that desire. Dependence was a fragile painful thing in that way, but she’d never understood this: the pain he’d felt, the pain she feared he would alway feel now that he saw how impossibly futile his desire was.

They finish the show, close it out despite the hiccup and head to his apartment without retaping the last segment because she knows he just wants to go home, knows he just wants her there. They can reedit the broadcast for the Westcoast, add in another ad to cover the gaff.

She isn’t worried about that; she’s worried about him even though he says he’s fine, even though he insists on it as they go to bed, curling up beside one another, drowsy despite the tension she could feel humming through them both.

She wakes a couple hours later. She can hear him on the phone, across the apartment, voice raised, but not loud enough that she can hear what he’s saying. His brother she thinks although Liz is accustomed to odd hours, more odd than the ones they keep, although she doubts he would be yelling, be that frustrated with Liz who never asked for love, only patience.

He wakes her when he comes to bed— silently slipping between the sheets, trying not to jostle her, but tired and rough in his movement all the same— and again when he gets up to pad through the apartment, feet whispering on wooden floors, voice low as he makes another call. Liz, this time she’s sure, his voice lilts, wraps her gently in soft consonants as she falls back to sleep.

When she wakes with the rising sun he’s already up and she knows he hasn’t slept since the last time she’d felt him leave the bed, knows he hadn’t slept at all before then when she spots the mug drying in the rack beside the sink. He’d refilled the coffee maker, emptied out the grounds and reset the timer, but he’d forgotten about the mug he’d used to do away with the first pot.

She slips onto the couch, pressed right up beside him, head on his shoulder, still too bleary eyed to make out what he’s scrolling through on his laptop, but she knows it isn’t flight schedules.

“You should tell Sloan to take it easy with those workouts. You’ve been fussing in your sleep again.”

Whimpering, she doesn’t correct him, doesn’t bother telling him she doubts it had anything to do with any lingering pain, not last night anyway. She’d had other things to worry about.

She fakes a yawn and then another a few minutes later, setting aside her empty coffee mug knowing he won’t notice that she’s woken up. 

He’s been looking at baseball stats from 1982 for twenty minutes when she nuzzles the side of his neck and leans into him with a tiny sigh. Tired she knows it says and he notices, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

“I didn’t keep you up did I?”

“No,” she lies, smiling softly at his concern. “Come keep me company.”

“Nap?” He says like going back to bed at nine a.m. was a nap and not another aborted attempt at a decent night’s sleep.

“Yeah.” She stretches languidly and he follows her, settles in beside her as she stretches out, closes her eyes and carefully, slowly, slows her breathing as she feels him relax, feels his hand drop from her head, hears his other hand slide from his keyboard.

She waits to make sure, but it isn’t long before she’s moved his laptop and tucked him in, curled more on the pillows than perhaps he would prefer, but he was asleep and that was good enough for her.

*

She answers his phone when it rings later in the day, morning having pushed well into the afternoon as he slumbered. “This is MacKenzie.”

“Mac it’s Liz, is Will—”

“He’s sleeping. I can wake him if—” She would hate to, Liz has to know that, but she would if she needed to; he’d be furious if she didn’t.

“No, no. Let him sleep. I was hoping he’d still be sleeping. It didn’t sound like he’d gotten much sleep before he called me.”

“In the middle of the night.”

“I was at work.”

“You didn’t—” Mac takes a second to try and consider, to remember that this wasn’t her brother, one of her sisters she was talking to.

“Take the night off.” Liz snorts. “None of us are particularly upset, a little lost maybe but— We’re burying the man, not holding a funeral. Will offered to pay but the other two won’t hear of it and there’s no point in my arguing. I’m not particularly cut up about it and they went through more shit than I did.”

“He learned to walk the straight and narrow when you learned to walk.” Mac supplies the usual adage and hears Liz laugh. 

“He was still a total bastard, never let me have a night of peace, never let Will have one either till he met you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“He loves you more than anything, Mac.”

“I know. It’s not that.” She doesn’t want to get into this. Will valued his privacy; played his cards close to his chest when it came to his family, but she didn’t want Liz thinking— “It’s been a bit rough lately, I’ve been, it’s been— I put him through a lot. Work’s been—”

“Expectations aren’t shit. I told him I noticed, you know. A couple of months ago now. I assume he behaved for a while. I missed a bunch of broadcasts but things seem to be going OK.”

“You—?”

“Will’s always had a complex about having a complex. He never wanted to sound like someone people around here couldn’t trust even if it made him sound like someone else. He’s not doing it to make himself look like an ass even though everyone who knows him is bound to see it that way.”

“He’s not—”

“He’s selling out. You’re welcome to lob that one at him the next time he steps out of line which should be soon judging by how insistent he is about his total lack of emotion. Keep an eye on him for us Mac, please.”

“Yeah, of course.” She stumbles, surprised by the candor and the sudden revelations. “It’s gonna be— he’s going to be fine. We’ve been talking about Monday’s broadcast. I wouldn’t worry too much Liz, take care of yourself and I’ll, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

****

 

They’d talked about the show all weekend, Monday’s and Tuesday’s broadcasts as well as the rest of the week, but ultimately plans had changed. She hadn’t said much but she had told Will she was going down to Silver Spring. She’d had to tell him, she’d had to skip the show to make her flight, but she hadn’t mentioned Charlie, hadn’t mentioned specifically why she was going, although she had said work so he wouldn’t worry.

She trusted Jim with the show, knew he can handle Will if he needed to so she’d left New York, and with one last call to Jim, checking in,and had fallen into a delirious sleep at the airport Marriott as the clock had ticked over to midnight. She’d been able to manage eight hours by the time Charlie had landed, but she’s still groggy when he knocks on her door half an hour later, looking amused as she tries to smooth her crumpled hair with the flat of her hand. The flight the night before had bought her a couple of extra hours of sleep but she’s still exhausted.

“I’ll walk over and pick up the car then we can grab breakfast.”

“OK.” She stifles a yawn, “I should only be another ten minutes. I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

*

The flight back doesn’t leave her with much time at the office before her appointment with Michael, but she wants to talk to Jim about the show last night, about tonight’s show. She wants to pop her head into Will’s office and grin at him for no reason, find a way to flash her ring, brush her hand against his arm. She wants to hold him but that’ll have to wait, which is probably better. She doesn’t know how he’s doing. He’d sounded OK on the phone the night before, teasing, so she’s not too worried that she hasn’t heard much from him today. She’d sent him a text to let him know she was headed back and he’d responded to that, but he hadn’t responded to any of her morning updates, hadn’t replied when she’d asked him what he’d been up to.

She isn’t worried about that though until she walks in her office and Sloan is sitting there, chair angled, squeezed beside the edge of her desk and the window so she can prop her feet up on the filing cabinet with enough room for Mac to pass by.

Mac makes her way around the desk, fingers dusting the wood to keep herself cognisant of its presence, keep herself from bumping up against it repeatedly. She makes her way around the desk and sits and waits. She’s left the door open, too surprised by Sloan’s unexpected appearance to close it, so she isn’t surprised when Sloan gets up and closes it herself, before flopping back down in her chair.

“I already yelled at Will. He feels like an idiot, but he’ll be all right.”

“What? Sloan?”

“I told Jim you wouldn’t have seen it. No one’s told Charlie yet either.” Sloan smirks a bit at the thought.

“What happened.” Period, no question mark because she’s starting to worry now. There’s too much information and not enough. Sloan was here and not Jim. Sloan was here which meant, which meant—

“Will went on ACN Morning. It’s fine, Mac. Mac.” Sloan repeats more sharply and Mac pulls her hand from her face to look at her.

“It was a ridiculous idea. He looked ridiculous, but it’s not going to hurt anything. There’ll probably be a couple of screencaps online, TIVOs a bitch, but it won’t even make the sleazy tabloids.”

“That doesn’t,” Mac starts before clamping down on her bottom lip. “Fuck.”

“Kenzie, don’t—”

“No, you don’t—” The door to her office swings open and she stops, forcing herself to take a breath before she glances over to see who it is.

“Knocking is a thing.” She reminds Jim, snappish and short because she can be, because she doesn’t have the energy to bother playing nice. She snaps and she frowns but he’s too busy trying to telepathically communicate with Sloan to notice. “Would you two—”

Sloan looks over at her with raised eyebrows and she realizes she’s raised her voice.

“I have half an hour until I have to be uptown and you’re telling me—”

“Now, yeah. Not the brightest move, but we wanted you to know before someone else said something. I thought.” He doesn’t finish, but she knows what he’d intended to say, that she would appreciate that, and maybe she would have, she definitely would have, if the news, if the the words that had fallen out of Sloan’s mouth weren’t something straight out of a nightmare.

“He fucking,” she stops herself long enough to take a breath. “He promised.”

“He’s upset.” It’s Sloan the offers the platitude, not Jim, the saving grace that stops her halfway through a furious. “Don’t you dare try and— That’s exactly why he fucking promised.”

*

Don’s waiting in her office when they get off the air. She knows he has a show to prep, but he’s been doing this more often, checking in, not just on Genoa or their shows, but on her in a quiet sort of way that she can ignore if she wants, and she finds she appreciates that despite the way everyone else still seems to hover.

“He confirmed.” She drops her binder onto her desk and scoots up to sit on the corner.

Don’s eyebrows rise. “Will he do it on camera?”

“Find out Thursday.” She shrugs, glancing out into the newsroom to where Jim’s packing up for the night. “Do you trust Jerry Dantana?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” She glances at him resisting the urge to frown.

“I have no reason not to.” She nods, but he doesn’t look convinced. “But you don’t.”

“I— something doesn’t feel right, but maybe— he isn’t Jim.”

“No.” Don offers her a smile. “He’s committed the crime of not being Jim Harper. We’ve all been there.”

“I trust you.” She jumps in, too quickly she realizes when Don’s smile shifts to one of amusement.

“I know and Mac,” he segues without preamble, “if Charlie green lights it, and Will, and the lawyers you still have to consider not running it.”

“I know. It’s not,” she pauses for a moment. “We’re not there yet.”

***

 

She hadn’t been sure about the shoes, had been even less sure about her choice between meds and champagne, but she knows the second that Sloan’s eyebrows creep up as she laughs that she’d made the right decision.

“He’s gawking like a school boy. He hasn’t noticed that I’ve noticed.” Her grin widens. “I wish you could see.”

The door was to her left, she could almost see it out of the corner of her eye, but it’s not until Sloan gives a disappointed grunt that she turns to look.

“I’ve been caught.” She laments but Mac isn’t listening, too caught up in watching the way Will’s studiously avoiding glancing in their direction. He’s having a rather absorbing conversation, or it looks that way for the outside, but Will’s always been diplomatic, good at multitasking even when bored out of his skull.

He looks over, finally, a fleeting glance and she forces herself not to smile, waiting until he meets her eye to cant her head ever so slightly to one side before straightening up.

He can’t take his eyes off her and she doesn’t look away, lets him narrowly avoid a collision with a caterer and doesn’t blink. He stops several feet back, pausing, his eyes widening as he tries to sort out what he’s seeing. 

He’s close enough now that she can see him swallow. He’s close enough now that she should have to tip her chin up a bit to hold his gaze, but she hasn’t, she doesn’t need to, she keeps her gaze steady and he steps closer, stopping several paces back to offer her a shy smile.

“You look,” he swallows again. “Amazing.”

Beside her Sloan forces down a laugh and smirks when Mac glances over. “I told you the dress would be good.”

Good was an understatement. It was perfect, a layer of black lace over a creamy beige that at first glance seemed to be tantalizing teases of skin. It was too much for a work event, but it was perfect for tonight. It fit like a glove, hugging her curves on top then flaring out to pool in a slender cone at her feet, the airy unlined lace dense enough that she could stand barefoot unnoticed if she wanted to.

He steps closer, close enough now to reach a finger, not for the expanse of her neck or her exposed shoulders, but for the loops of her earrings, the tiny black and white beads glittering in the overhead light.

“I remember when you got these.” He sets the earring swaying with his touch and she smiles, reaching to brush her hand against his waist.

They’d been a gift from her brother. They’d arrived out of the blue, sent to the office where her roommates wouldn’t abscond with them. They were expensive. Too expensive she’d thought at the time, but she could see now why he’d insisted that she have them. With her hair pulled back in loose curls, the earrings shiver and dance, whispering above her shoulders, letting her leave her neck bare to show off the carefully trimmed lace at the dress’s neckline as it dipped over her breasts, slipping just low enough to show a bit of cleavage.

“I sent Steve another thank you in the cab on the way here. He asked me to tell him what you thought.”

Will makes an aggravated noise as she forces the corners of her mouth into a more neutral line, avoiding a smirk.

“Does he have any idea what you’re wearing?”

“Oh he knows.” She lets her smile come through in her voice but she’s still watching him impassively, enjoying how easily she’s riling him up.

“I’d ring his neck for that if he were here.” The comment’s conversational, off-hand and she almost laughs.

“Not if he got to you first.”

“You do look a little greedy.” Sloan confirms and he narrows his eyes at her. “I’m not objecting. I’m the one who found her the dress remember?”

Will scoffs and Sloan laughs politely, demure in a way Mac’s never quite been able to master, her hand brushing Mac’s arm as her gaze fixes on someone across the room. “Can I make introductions or do you and Will need to go fix,” she’s careful to emphasize the word, “your problematic dress?”

*

When he isn’t standing beside her, hand lightly on her back or tucked around her waist, his eyes are on her, quick fluttering glances that occasionally make Sloan stop and smirk over the top of her drink.

“When you said he wouldn’t be able to help himself,” she laughs as Mac shakes her head, intentionally angled away from his inquisitive gaze.

“I wasn’t sure, we’ve both had a lot on our minds lately, but this,” she smiles, “he’s enjoying himself.”

“He’s preening. He’ll be quite insufferable by the time the two of you leave.”

“It’s sweet.” Mac’s smile turns shy. “Thanks again for insisting—”

“Jim did all the heavy lifting with the show, all I had to do was fix your hair.”

“Sloan—”

“You’re welcome.” Sloan laughs again. “Remind him there’s a FIT student waiting for their project back. I may be your dressmaking fairy godmother but I am not equipped to deal with teen rage.”

*

Her feet are killing her, legs aching from the sheer force of will it’s costing to keep herself from wobbling, but she’s still loathe to lose the shoes— the bit of stubborn defiance choosing heels always lent her— as she stops beside the front door, leaning into Will to fumble with the clasps, until he bends down to unbuckle them himself.

“You don’t have another pair?” He asks concerned, still holding tight to her arm as he straightens with her shoes held loosely in his free hand.

“It’s ten feet to the street.” She reminds him, tucking her hands into the slender pockets of her coat: cellphone, cash, and a door key. Her lipstick and anything else she might’ve needed is in Sloan’s clutch.

“I don’t want you to cut your feet.”

“I’ll stand right behind you and step where you step.”

“I don’t want to end the night in the ER.”

“Impatient.” She lets a smile spread out over her face. “I’m tired. It’s safer without the shoes.”

“You’ll ruin your stockings

I’m not wearing stockings. She murmurs knowing exactly where his mind will go.

“You’re not wearing,” he parrots and she lets herself grin, careful not to let it turn wicked, not yet. “Isn’t there a rule about, do I have to make a rule about—”

“Don’t worry about the shoes, Billy.” She slides a hand down the front of his shirt and stretches up onto her toes to kiss him. “You did promise to let me take them off first.”

“I,” he sighs, bumping her earring with the side of his finger, setting it swaying.

She reaches up to still it and he brushes her hand away.

“Tickles.” She grumbles, turning to brush her chin against her shoulder to blunt the sensation and his hand slips along the side of her jaw, down her neck.

“Better?”

“Wrong side.”

He rolls his eyes, teasing, and trails his fingers across the slope of her shoulder, over the strap of the dress, down her arm. Gentle and contemplative the gesture holds her rapt until Carlos steps up beside them and she jumps, stiffening reflexively to keep from stumbling.

“Good evening, sorry ma’am. I’m parked at the curb if you’re ready to go.”

*

“Why is there always traffic?” Will asks with a distinct note of annoyance as they stop at yet another light and Carlos glances back at them in the rearview mirror clearly trying to keep a straight face. The streets were mostly clear. It was the lights that kept slowing them down.

“You look very nice tonight, ma’am.” He tells her and Will groans almost audibly at the reminder as she laughs.

It’s late enough that she’s let herself lean her head on Will’s shoulder. It wasn’t normally an impulse she indulged, not in the half-light of Midtown, but lately he hasn’t seemed to be able to keep her close enough, hold her tight enough and there were other possibilities too; she wasn't above stealing sloppy kisses in the back of a car, even considering professional decorum. Discretion was important to both of them even if she didn’t mind the thought of Carlos listening. She’d laid into Will enough times on their trips to and from the office that she knows he isn’t about to object to anything she did as long as it didn’t impair his driving, but Will wouldn’t see it that way, normally wouldn’t see it that way, but tonight there’s a part of her that wonders if he’d even notice her squirming her way into his lap.

She’s had her head on his shoulder for most of the ride, but he’s kept his hands to himself, his gaze fixed on the window beside her, impassive. She knows he’s lost somewhere inside his head again. He won’t let her in, but she can draw him out.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, tugging his hand free from where he’s tucked it under his thigh. She lays it on her knees and feels his fingers twitch before she spreads her hand over his. “I promise to leave my shoes off all the way up to the apartment.”

“Mac.” The warning is throaty but tinged with laughter, his fingers pressing softly into the fabric of her dress.

“Not helping.”

“No.” He agrees, although the smile she can hear suggests that she is.

*

“You’ll never forgive me if I fuck up that dress.” He laments as soon as the elevator door closes before them. “I can’t buy you another one, can I?”

She shakes her head even as she frees her lip from where she’s been worrying it between her teeth, to grin. “Fuck up the dress or fuck me in the dress? You can’t ruin the dress. Candice needs it for her final project.”

“Who is, I don’t— Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Take it off.”

“Will.” She chides, turning from her silver-hued reflection in the door to look at him.

“I’m waiting.” He grins at her, that slow lazy grin she loves, but it’s undercut by a tension she doesn’t normally see from him. She’d written it off in the cab as impatience, but it’s something more than that, she can see that as he guides her backwards out of the elevator and down the hall until her back is pressed into the wall at the corner by the living room.

“Off.” He suggests again but she only shakes her head and tugs on his hand, pulling him through the apartment, stopping when he tugs back to pull her close, to kiss her, to make a mess of her lipstick she whines at him after gasping, his lips on her neck, her fingers wrapped around the door jamb, the bed on the other side of the wall.

“More later.” He assures her absently and she laughs, swatting at him lightly before slipping through the door.

She backs toward the bed, half stumbling in anticipation, occasionally tugging at the sides of her dress to keep the hem free from her feet, keep his questing hands from sliding too high.

She sits, hard, hand pressed on the mattress to stop herself from falling back with a soft ‘ooph’ and the bottom half of her skirt seems to disappear as it’s bunched in Will’s hand, because he predictably has a thing for legs, has a thing for legs in skirts, has a thing for her legs, although she’d never quite known why other than that they were attached to the rest of her, which she supposes is as good a reason as any.

She reaches to tug him down onto the bed beside her but he brushes her hand aside, lays it in her lap when she doesn’t seem to want to let him be. He’s standing in front of her. She could reach and wrap her arms around his waist, press her face into his stomach with a smile, or smiling more devilishly reach for buckle on his belt, but she leaves her hand where he had laid it and watches him watching her from under long mascaraed lashes.

He reaches for her periodically with fleeting touches, reassured, she thinks, enough that she can see him relax. He kneels carefully and then settles more comfortably at her feet, her skirt on the bed, bunched at her knees.

For a moment it seems he’s going to lay his head in her lap, but his ever questing fingers run circles around her kneecaps and she reaches to slide her hand along the side of his neck, tickle the spot behind his ear that makes the corner of his mouth quirk up.

Higher his fingers slide and then still, she feels them hesitate when they brush the first of the tiny metal clasps, stop when they bump the second, feels a thrill in the bottom of her stomach when he lets out a slow deliberate breath.

“What?” He says trying to place the sensation although she knows he must have already. He hadn’t been expecting this. He’d bought her lingerie in the past and more recently, but he’d never showered her in it like she knew some men did. And although she had, on a whim, in the years between Cambridge and CNN, bought herself something nice— something fancy and deliciously naughty, experimenting, wondering— she’d done most of her shopping since then at low end department stores. So this was something new, something that had sent an electric shiver up her spine as she’d moved through the boutique on her lunch break earlier in the week, fingers dusting lace and tiny metal clasps, anticipating.

“I left the stockings in my apartment with the hairspray and Sloan’s curling iron.”

It’s inconsequential to him she knows that, but she tells him anyway because those will be the things she’ll remember later looking back, the mundane things, the tiny human details of the life she’s finally managed to build for herself, for them.

“You.” He says it like he’s considering something and then he smiles up at her, fingers suddenly careful as they slip her dress higher. He can’t get it off her that way but he seems to have forgotten because he frowns at the curve of her hip, the flare of the garter belt visible, his fingers stilled when she presses her hand to his before reaching under her arm for the zipper, peeling it down slowly so she doesn’t snag the lace, slowly so he catches on, stops her, starts his exploration anew along her shoulder.

She hadn’t bought anything particularly fancy, the dress had enough lace to last the night, but there was a bit: skirting the curves along the top of the bra, panels, careful cutouts snug against her hips, still hidden by her dress, the black satin shimmering in the light from the window, glowing.

He peels the strap of the dress away from her skin, skirts a finger along the line of her bra, down her shoulder and then diagonally across the swell of her breasts, dipping and then rising. She lets him look, lets him touch with soft sudden inhales and quiet exhaled laughs, the dress slowly disappearing until she stands to let it pool on the floor.

They’ll find it crumpled under the corner of the bed in the morning but she doesn’t spare a thought for that now, scooting back to sprawl across the bed, arms spread, fingers grasping at the comforter as she feels his fingers start again, skating smoothly along the bra’s bottom band.

His fingers run down her ribs, not light enough to tickle, his touch too deliberate for that, but light enough that she can’t help but squirm, swat his hand away.

“Too much.” She reminds him even though she knows she doesn’t need to, and then gasps in surprise as he grabs her wrist and pins it to the bed, continuing his ministrations without so much as a grunt in acknowledgement of her protest.

“Will,” she says, “Will please,” and says again, “Will.” The sensation building at an almost unbearable pace.

His eyes slide up to hers, his eyebrows arched and she sees it then, what she’d been trying to place, that look in his eye, the sharp slump to his shoulders. She’d known she’d seen it before, but she hadn’t realized where, hadn’t realized when.

She’d seen it first in her early days at CNN, when she’d slip by him in the hall, smile politely, knowing vaguely, as all the staff did, who he was. Those had been the days after his mom had passed, days of silent reckoning, although she hadn’t known it at the time. She’d seen his grief then, had seen it bright and aching though it feels hazier now that it’s the days after that that sting sharpest in her memory, the days when he’d had to turn away every time she’d entered the room. She had seen it then too, could not have missed it then, and she wonders in the days that have passed how often it had appeared, how many other women had seen it, because some had, she knew that, there had been echoes of it in the tabloid stories, traces of it on those nights when he’d left the newsroom not alone, but lonely.

She squirms, overwhelmed in one too many ways and pulls her arm from the bed, curling her fingers in his hair. It takes some coaxing, nails scraping his scalp as she tugs, to get him to lean toward her, but eventually she has him settled, lips pressed against her collarbone.

“Whatever you need.” She promises, stroking her fingers through his hair, gentle now that he’d stopped being so obstinate. “Please. I won’t ask you to stop.”

“MacKenzie.” He whispers, the word hot against her skin and she shivers.

“I want you to, whatever you need. Tonight, please. You don’t have to ask.”

And he doesn’t. His teeth scrape against her skin, lightly, experimentally at first, waiting for her objection, but she’s lowered her arm back the the bed and tipped her head to the side to bare her neck.

She’d never done this, had never considered it even though he’d asked. No marks where anyone could see, that had always been the rule, whether for decorum’s sake or preference she isn’t sure anymore. She had, in the past, let him pepper her thighs with tiny bruises, but now with Michael, his constant insistence on the merits of massage, there wasn’t much she could hide. Not that she needed to. He would never ask, although she knew he always knew. He never said a word when she came in with an odd cramp in her calf, a sharper pain in her hip. She knew the others must notice too although none of them would dare raise an eyebrow, although Sloan, Sloan would say something: what’d you do, drop your lipstick down your shirt?

She smiles at the thought, knowing she’ll stumble awkwardly for something to say while Sloan waits grinning, pleased for them both, she and Will. She laughs a bit at the thought and Will pauses at the sound of her chuckle.

“Weather forecast. It’s still cool enough for turtlenecks.” She assures him, lifting her hand to run her nails down his spine.

*

She wakes several times during the night, sometimes to find Will smiling in his sleep, an arm or a leg flung unconsciously in her direction, other times to find him awake, pressed close stroking her hair, his lips on what she knows must be a masterful bruise in the hollow of her throat, his fingers dancing up the inside of her thighs.

He’s relentless in the way he tended to be, but restless too: he’s in the shower, in the kitchen, sitting head bowed at the end of the bed. When he stirs beside her at five a.m. she stills him with a hand pressed to his chest before rolling over to settle her weight against him. She’s deliciously sore, decidedly so, and sorer still on top of that, but when he smiles mumbling, “again?” amused and inquiring, she smiles back and nuzzles the side of his neck.

“You’re the one who said you liked having an insatiable girlfriend.” She reminds him like it isn’t his fault for always winding her up, making her wait, content enough with her half-tortured bliss to gently quiet her mounting protests.

“You look so beautiful.” He tells her in what she knows is a blanket statement but she shakes her head anyway, amused.

“You’re just trying to butter me up.” She tells him with mock seriousness. “You’re hoping I won’t beam you over the head when you won’t let me go back to sleep.”

“I would never.” He scoffs, but he’s laughing when she stretches to kiss him. “I’ll take you out to brunch after. Wherever you want.”

*

“Wherever?” She asks again as she yanks another dress up over her head.

“Yeah. Oh, Mac.” He stills her with a hand on her arm and she turns to kiss away the frown she sees blossoming in the mirror. “I—”

“Shh,” she whispers with a shake of her head, turning back so they can both study her bruised reflection. “I kind of like it.”

“You—” She watches him shake his head as she smiles.

“You’ve seen the bruise on my leg from that cabinet.”

He grunts, refraining saying anything about ‘that fucking cabinet’, the one she kept running into in the edit bay she insisted on using because it was her bay even if someone from dayside had decided to squeeze a cabinet in beside the door.

“This one’s much nicer.”

“It’s nicer? It looks like—”

“Someone loves me.”

“That’s—”

“Nonsensical.” She grins. “Audrey Hepburn or Peter Pan school girl?”

“What?” His eyebrows draw together in the mirror and she moves away to pull a pair of dresses from the back of the rack. She hasn’t worn either of them despite the black stockings and black shoes she has picked out to match, another of Sloan’s clever wardrobe appeals, a bit of sassy fun.

Both dresses have the same cut, the neckline flat along her shoulders, just low enough to show a bit of skin across the top, both neatly tailored to flare to her knees from large careful pleats at the waist, one solid black, the other with white polka dots, whimsical with its white peter pan collar and white cuffs that sat turned up just below the crook of her elbows.

“No.” He says when he sees them, feeling, she thinks, too protective to like the idea of anyone else looking, despite the fact that today she doesn’t care about the looks or her potential stumbles. She’s not interested in showing off or being seen, she’d had enough of that last night, but she likes the thought of the dresses: timeless but also a little bit silly, a little bit frivolous, not something she would normally wear, not something she’d ever allowed herself to wear. She would’ve been too self-conscious, too leary, but not today, not when she knows that’s the smaller of the hurdles she has to face.

“Put on a sweater, a blouse.” He amends when she gives him a look, but she only shakes her head and tugs at the zipper nestled at the back of the unembellished dress.

“I can’t. We’re going out to lunch.”

“With a dress code?”

She smiles gently and nods. “I thought we could go to the Mercer Kitchen. We always talked about—”

“Mac.”

She can hear the strain in his voice, but she keeps her eyes on the dress, fussing with the tiny clasp she’s already managed to undo.

“Not today.” He’s not pleading, but he is asking, softly, hesitantly enough that it makes her throat tighten.

“Today.” She insists, knowing when he looks away that it’s not frustration he’s hiding. “I want to go today.”

“I—” He exhales, scrubbing a hand over his face and she nods despite the fact she knows he can’t see her.

She’s asking for a lot, she knows that, but she’d thought about it when he’d offered, when he’d drifted off to sleep while her body had hummed high off endorphins. She hadn’t noticed it at the time, there’s no reason she would have, but his dates, the few she’d known the specifics of, had been undeniably painful in a way she hadn’t been able to understand. They’d felt invasive, insidious. They’d felt like hers, like theirs, and they had been, she’d realized that: all the places, all the meals they’d promised to share. And even now, still, with her here, he’s lonely, lonelier than he had been in those heady promise days.

She wanted him to let go of some of that, stop holding on to whatever damage he thinks he’s saving them from by not admitting that he hurt, that it hurts, because she knows it does, knows he does, despite the fact she knows, even after last night’s respite, that he’ll still insist he’s fine.

“Today.” She asks again, slipping the dress over her head. “For me?”

“Anything for you, Mac.” The words are smooth, but he looks conflicted when he turns back toward her. “Just, anywhere else. Balthazar. Amélie.”

She’s torn, hesitating for a moment, hesitating for a moment too long she realizes, because he’s noticed.

“I don’t want to think about you not being here, not today. Not—” He swallows. “I can’t. Not today.”

“Tamarind.” She offers quietly and watches him nod relieved. It was an irresistible suggestion, because it always was, it was always Tamarind. He’d never seen the appeal before she’d shown up and found the highbrow Indian place up the street, but that had been enough. Comfort food she always insisted although it never had been, never really was, but it was close enough to a reminder of the meals she could occasionally cajole Jim into cooking that it didn’t matter. The place felt, smelt, warm and safe. If he wanted a reminder of what it meant to have her here, there wasn’t a better place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moodboard [3](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/post/172137677785/i-want-to-see-you-in-a-fancy-dress-so-you-can) ([all moodboards](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-hold-you-like-the-answer))  
> [Mac's dress](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/11/3d/87/113d8756f380d720a20e62723a04a7d8.jpg)


	3. Chapter 3

When she walks in Sloan raises her eyebrows in their customary greeting and Mac grins.

“Yeah?” Sloan inquires and she nods, laughing when Sloan lets out a whoop and holds up her hand for a high five as Will pokes his head of out his office with raised eyebrows.

“She’s kickass.” Sloan informs him and he disappears as Mac shakes her head laughing. “I guess he already knows that. You did it?”

“Yeah.” Mac takes a deep breath with a grin. “I did.”

She had done it. Another brilliant triumph to add to her week: the Genoa broadcast was finally coming together and Michael had finally greenlit her to start working on the balance boards. She’d hesitated but she’d done it, grinned as she’d wobbled, laughed as she’d set her feet back on solid ground. “We did it.”

***

 

She’s perched on the end of the bed, listening to Will in the bathroom, humming something that sounds suspiciously like a Sousa march, not his usual fare but she figures he’s a bit concerned she might not have figured out how pleased he is with the broadcast, as reticant as he’d been to join in the celebration that had fizzled out only as they’d said their goodbyes just before midnight.

It’s a ridiculous thing to be humming but Will’s usual taste in music didn’t lend itself to anything much in the way of celebration, so this would do, and if she ended up chucking a couple of pairs of socks at his head in fond exasperation she knew he wouldn’t mind.

“You missed a bit in the middle.” She calls out to him and he turns the tap on in the sink, drowning out whatever else she might be inclined to say, almost drowning out the sound of her phone ringing.

She checks the display and pads out toward the living room as she picks up.

“Hi,” she smiles, listening for whatever background noise she can discern. “Chicago?”

There’s a chuckle; she’d guessed right. “I wasn’t sure you’d be home yet.”

“Work in the morning.” She says unnecessarily as she perches on a stool in the kitchen, still close enough to the bedroom that Will will be able to hear the soft murmur of her conversation.

“That was an impressive broadcast.”

“You say that every time.” She complains fondly and her dad laughs.

“Because I’m proud of you, Kinny.”

“You say that too.”

“Aiming for another Peabody?” He’s teasing in the same way Steve always did. They both knew she’d never been concerned with that sort of recognition, but they liked the idea of it, someone fussing over her accomplishments in a way that wasn’t overshadowed by the rest of them.

“Dad.” She can picture him in bed, TV still on, muted, casting shadows in the otherwise dark room, a glass of water beside the bed next to his watch, his cufflinks, business cards, the other detritus from his business meeting that night, the phone he’d be holding with one hand. He never wedged it between ear and shoulder, even when she’d been young he’d complained about being too old for that. “How’s Chicago?”

“It’s not New York.” She can hear the smile in his voice. “And it’s certainly not London like your mother had hoped, but I’m flying out tomorrow.”

“She’ll be happy about that.”

“She’ll be happy she finally has me in one place long enough to agree on tiles for the bathroom.”

“She already picked them out. She sent me photos.”

“Try telling her that.”

Mac smiles, hangs on to the feeling for a moment. “Did she pick out the sheets yet?”

It’s the last thing she wants to ask, the last argument she wants to cause, but there’s no other way for her to know what she’s in for the next time her mother calls: a curt dismissal or frustrated admonishments.

“She wasn’t planning on picking out the sheets.”

“I know. I,” she winces, takes a breath, “was kind of hoping.”

“She’s just as stubborn as you are, Kinny. I can talk—”

“No,” she cuts him off shaking her head needlessly. “No, don’t argue over me. I’ve disappointed her enough—”

“MacKenzie,” the warning is gentle, the same way Will might say ‘Mac’ when she was exasperating him, but it still makes her chest ache, the way he thinks he needs to remind her that her mother loves her the same way he always has. “The two of you frustrate the hell out of each other, that doesn’t make you disappointing.”

“Why can’t I stay in a hotel?”

“You can’t come home and stay in a hotel.”

“It’s not—” home, she almost says, but she cuts herself off, biting the inside of her lip to stop herself from reminding him that the only thing worse than sleeping in that room shoved in beside the kitchen would be staying with Lexie who inarguably found all her siblings disappointing. “I hardly used the last set she bought.”

“She wants to do something nice for you.”

“Can’t she buy me flowers?” She’s complaining needlessly she knows that. Her dad didn’t entirely disagree with her, but her mother had made her intentions clear years ago and if Mac insisted on rehashing the same argument they’d been having since she’d graduated from Cambridge then that was her problem as far as her mother was concerned.

“She doesn’t buy flowers,” there’s a subdued chuckle there, “she recieves them, regally.”

“I know, I,” she sighs and lets herself trail off. “Steve said you were thinking of spending Christmas in New York.”

“The two of you are talking again.” There’s a distinct note of amusement in her dad’s voice, one that’s more familiar than she’d like to admit.

“I was never not—” There wasn’t much of a point in arguing. He knew them both well enough to know what had happened, to know she hadn’t been angry about Steve turning down the promotion— although she still wished he hadn’t, or that she wasn’t thrilled about him moving back to New York, that had been his saving grace after all— but that she’d been angry that he’d waited to tell her. Logically she knew he’d done it intentionally and for good reason. She knew she would’ve only argued with him needlessly, muddy the waters. It needed to be his decision. She could respect that. That hadn’t meant she’d wanted to talk about it, talk about how easily he had thrown away everything he’d worked for. “What were you planning?”

“I haven’t talked to your mother, but even if Lexie refuses to come, she doesn’t have much of an argument. She sees Alexandra more frequently than she sees the rest of us. Steve and Sheila never pass up a trip back to New York; it would be nice to have the four of you in one place for awhile.”

“I’ll have to talk to Will.”

Will would never keep her from her family, and there was no way he was going to let her talk him out of using the dining room for Christmas dinner, but she wanted to ask, wanted to make sure he wasn’t hoping Liz and the kids or any of the others were planning to make the trip out for the holiday. It wasn’t likely, and it’d be a harsh reminder of what he didn’t have, but she didn’t want to assume, not with how busy she’d been the last couple of weeks, not with how little time they’ve had alone.

They’d spent the previous weekend with Steve so there’s a chance Will knows about the potential holiday gathering. It’s more than probable given how much time the two men had spent together before she’d threatened to start lobbing dishes at Steve’s head and he’d wisely seen himself out. There’s a possibility though that Steve hadn’t said anything. She has no way of knowing, not when she knows Will wouldn’t want to mention her brother and risk adding fuel to the fire. She’ll have to ask once the press dies down and they could have a moment to themselves. She’ll have to ask, but right now she has more pressing concerns. “What time is your flight?”

“Late enough that I wasn’t planning on heading to bed for a while.” Her dad confides almost conspiratorially and she smiles, slipping from her perch to move farther into the apartment, looking for a more comfortable place to continue their conversation.

***

 

Logically she understands that Will hadn’t seen the segment of Elliot’s show that she’d just seen, that she’d rewound to watch again. He’d been in the other room towel drying his hair after a shower, so when he walks in and she snaps at him to get dressed again he’s understandably confused. He’s understandably confused but she doesn’t have the words to explain. She’s already dialed Jim and the phone is ringing.

“Get dressed. We’re going back to the office.” She tells him again with hardly a backward glance and he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask her again until after she’s told Jim to call and give the staff a heads up, and she’s texted Sloan to tell her to run home and grab whatever she might need and to ask her to tell Don and Elliot to stay put.

“What?” He asks again and she presses her eyes shut to stop a rush of annoyance.

“You’re not dressed.”

“I’m wearing clothes.” He tells her, an edge to his voice suggesting he’s not entirely pleased with her tone.

“Put some shoes on. We’re leaving.”

He mercifully doesn’t point out that she isn’t dressed to leave the apartment either and instead catches the remote she tosses at him on the way to the bedroom.

“Shit, Mac.” She hears him sigh from the doorway as she yanks a pair of pants toward the hem of the blouse she’d already thrown on.

“Can we go now?” She asks instead of responding as she moves past him again, not waiting for an answer, but asking all the same because she knows she should. She doesn’t, strictly speaking, need him right away, but Charlie would be calling again, once he got on the highway, and there’s a chance that Will’s going to be the one to talk to him first, be the one relaying information and that, if nothing, else would be easier done with both of them in the same room.

*

It’s not the TBI that’s eating at her by the time she joins Will in his office. It’s not Elliot’s broadcast or the fact that Maggie hadn’t been present for the Stomtonovich interview, it’s Valenzuela, it’s the sinking feeling in her stomach knowing Will isn’t going to want to hear a word she’s going to say.

“What if I led him?”

Will looks up as she tosses the transcript onto the table in front of him. “Valenzuela?” 

“In his pre-interview.”

“You didn't.”

“I can make the case that I did.” There’s nothing in his tone that suggests she’ll be able to convince him otherwise but she’s agitated enough that she has to try. No matter what she says he’s going to tell her it isn’t as bad as she thinks, that she needs to relax, but she knows it’s at least as bad as she thinks, if not worse. 

“Look at what’s good in the story.”

“Will—”

“Stomtonovich—”

She groans, fingers pressed to her eyes in exasperation

“We've got him on film. Sweeney, he wants to be heard, so he lies. I have a source.”

“Will—”

He waves her off continuing, “is it POTUS? No. It's better.”

“What would it take for you to tell me the source?” 

“Someone would have to be torturing you.”

She scoffs, shakes her head a little at his obvious ploy to make her smile, as truthful as the statement is. “That's sweet, but—”

“Charlie has a source. You trust Charlie?”

She turns away wincing, takes a couple of steps, pacing. That wasn’t the point. “Of course.”

“And we have Valenzuela. There is much more about this story that's good—”

“And I'm saying what if I led Valenzuela?”

“I objected— Mac.” He’s waiting until he has her attention, but he isn’t listening and she’s wondering why she should.

“Read the first line on page three.”

“Mac, this isn’t your—”

“Jesus Christ, Will.” She turns back toward him again, making the return loop from the door, stopping to press her hand to the table, fumbling with the pages of the transcript until she can shove it toward him folded open to the appropriate spot.

“He was reluctant. He didn’t want to talk.”

“I should’ve—”

“Mac—”

“No.” She glares but his gaze is just as firm and unrelenting as hers. She could argue till she was blue in the face, he wasn’t listening.

“You need to sleep.”

***

 

She hadn’t bothered to pretend she’d been sleeping, like she’d been trying to sleep. She’d called him and let the phone ring until he picked up. “Come over?”

“Yeah all right.” He’d said and said again when she’d patted the couch next to where she’s sitting.

“You were up?” He’s dressed, jeans and a t-shirt, with one of the flannel shirts she’d bought him when they’d first ended up in DC.

“I was watering Mrs. Park’s plants.”

“Why wasn’t Mrs. Park watering Mrs. Park’s plants?” She asks as he butts up against her, shoulder to hip.

“She’s in Korea visiting her son.”

“I thought he was coming back soon.”

“He is.” Jim shrugs, leaning into her more deliberately before shifting to let her settle back into the corner of the couch. “He has a lady friend.”

“A girlfriend?” She has to force herself to keep her voice down as she cackles. “The poor man.”

“A very nice lady friend.” Jim affirms with a playful grin.

“So you were being neighborly and watering Mrs. Park’s plants while she torments her potential daughter-in-law with tales of her wayward son.” Jim nods in ascent and she continues, “at five thirty in the morning.”

“I was up.”

“At five thirty.”

“I woke up at five.” He yawns in illustration. “I thought you might call.”

“You should’ve gone back to bed.”

He leans his head against his shoulder and tips it to the side to look at her with raised eyebrows. “What time did you get up?”

“How long does it take to get here from the bed?”

“With or without coffee?”

“Orange juice.”

“Two minutes.”

“Five twenty eight.”

Jim snorts and closes his eyes. For a moment she thinks he’s decided to take a nap, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d fallen asleep sprawled out on the couch with his head on her shoulder, but then he speaks, softly. “It’ll all blow over. It sucks but—”

“It’s hell.” She corrects and he reaches up to pat her languidly on the head. It’s not a comforting gesture in and of itself, but it makes her smile which she knows is what he’s aiming for.

“We’ll be fine.”

“It was a bad story.”

“Not the first one.”

“No,” she agrees, most of them had been through something like this before, even if only tangentially, even if she hadn’t, even if the only thing she’d ever blown up was her life. “but a big one.”

“We couldn’t have known.”

“I don’t even blame him.”

“Who?” Jim twists around and then sits up so he’s facing her. “Valenzuela?”

“Sweeney. He didn’t want us to know about the TBI because he knew we wouldn’t take him seriously. He lied because—”

“Mac.” The admonishment is gentle, but she shakes her head, putting him off.

“He lied because no one takes people—”

“Mac—”

“No. Jim. I did the same thing.”

“Mac, that’s not—”

“That’s exactly the point.”

“What you did,” the words hold a hint of warning so she stops herself from cutting him off again. “Is not the same. Empathizing is not condoning. He lied about something that had a direct impact on the veracity of his statements. And even so, you were skeptical from the beginning, we all were. We did our jobs. We couldn’t have known.”

“We would’ve never,” she stops when the words stick around the lump in her throat. “Never believed him.”

“Are you upset because it would have saved us a lot of trouble or because it feels like a particularly insidious thing to admit?”

“I don’t know.” She wipes irritably at her eyes, smiling at him sadly. “Does it matter?” 

***

 

She hasn’t spent the night at her place since last winter. It’s been so long since she’d even set foot in her building that Will had stopped suggesting she move out and had just accepted the fact that she didn’t mind the state of limbo they’ve been living in. She hasn’t been here, but she’s here now, alone, trying desperately not to curl up in a ball in the middle of her living room floor and weep because she knew he’d be calling, all soft and reconciliatory, asking how she was, where she was.

He’d been asking her for months not to look, not to listen, but it was hard to ignore the news when the news was your job, when she needed to know what they were saying, which way the wind was blowing. He thought she’d been wallowing, but she hadn’t been, not until tonight, not until she’d pushed open her front door and breathed in the stale dusty air of her apartment. She hadn’t had the luxury, hadn’t had the time, even now there wasn’t much of either, but she can’t bare the thought of spending the weekend running more damage control, pretending like she wasn’t the one who needed the damage control because she could feel it all slipping, knew what was coming.

He’d be worried about her, but it was better that she was here, that his worry was only based on what h’d seen, what he could imagine and not the way she trembled stripping the bed, throwing the bedding onto the living room floor, so she could crawl in between clean, if ice cold sheets at two a.m. knowing he was probably still dozing in the hall at AWM waiting for her, unless Rebecca or Maggie had roused him, sent him home after she’d slipped by.

She’s too tired, too exhausted to cry but she wakes in the early morning grey with sticky cheeks and a softly pounding head.

“Go back to sleep. It’s early still.” It’s Jim by the far side of the bed, setting pillows back into place, coming around to tuck the blanket back under her chin.

She sighs, curls back into the still warm blanket and is surprised to find herself waking to the sound of the wind buffeting the windows, coffee perking in the kitchen, the first rays of sun.

She knows Jim’s still here, she can hear him mumbling something to himself, but she isn’t expecting to find him broom in hand by her front door.

“You—” She takes a look around the space before turning back to him. He’s pulled the dust sheet off the couch and laundered it, fluffed the pillows and the blankets in the dryer, her floor had been swept, her kitchen cleaned. “You weren’t here all night were you?”

“No,” He shakes his head, leaning the broom against the wall. “Will called me at four because someone turned off her phone.” His voice is gentle, but the insinuation is clear. She scuffs the floor with her toe, biting her lip as he steps toward her. “He was worried.”

“I—” she swallows when her voice trembles, takes a deep breath shoulders heaving. “I couldn’t.”

“I know.” His hands are soft on her arms. “Next time call me though, OK? Someone needs to know where you are before you drop off the grid.”

“I needed. I couldn’t.”

“It’s OK.”

“It’s going to be bad.”

“What is?” He asks softly but she doesn’t reply, sitting automatically when he steers her back toward the couch.

“He didn’t, he didn’t call you because he was worried.” She sighs carefully, trying to steady herself. “There’s bad news coming and he’s scared.”

“For you.” Jim infers and she nods.

“It’s my—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Jim cuts her off firmly, loudly. “You’re a broken record, Mac.”

“It’s not like that.” She protests. “It’s not just, but we all— it is my fault, Jim don’t. Don’t argue. The rest of you shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t what?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Mac.”

“You deserve a second chance.”

“And you don’t?”

She frowns at him, turns the corners of her mouth down and narrows her eyes. She wanted him to let it go. “I didn’t say— I— that’s irrelevant.”

He considers her for a moment, impassive, obviously trying to decide where this was coming from so he can argue her out of believing what he must think is a ridiculous notion.

“That’s too pragmatic.”

She shrugs and waits but that seems, thankfully, to be the extent of his argument.

“I’ve never heard you— it’s always been it’ll get better or it’ll be better over here where we can literally get our asses shot off, but I’ve never,” he frowns at her. “Why aren’t you dragging me off somewhere?”

“I could never leave Will. I never wanted,” she starts and then trails off, wishing she could explain that running wouldn’t save her, that she’d never been running from Will but from herself, but that was too much to admit, too raw and terrifying, although she knows Jim has a pretty good idea of what’s running through her head. He’s avoiding calling her bluff out of kindness. He’s playing along because she needs that bit of comfort now, that sad distraction.

“He’d never let you—”

“Liz would take his head off if he did.”

“I have serious doubts about that being his primary source of motivation.” Jim offers her a smile, amused, and she looks away. “What do you think he wants to tell you?”

“He and Charlie,” she shakes her head. “I walk in and they stop talking or change the subject. Will’s been preoccupied. Someone’s leaving. I don’t think it’s going to be me.”

*

She stops in the corner by the coat closet when she steps off the elevator, taking a minute to watch him while he turns to look toward where she’s standing in shadow and then gets up to make his way over.

“Hey,” he smiles relieved as he steps into the hall and she shifts away from the wall, still watching him carefully.

“You sent Jim after me.” There’s something light in her voice, a smokescreen for the anxiety that’s gnawing at her.

“He had a key.”

“He would’ve given it to you.” Too short. She bites her tongue, bites back a sigh. “Could we just get this over with?”

“Could we?” He stops in front of her, waiting.

“Say what you want to say.”

“Could I say hello first?”

“You already—” she pinches the bridge of her nose and forces a shrug.

He hugs her, fleetingly. She could make an effort, she should try, he’s obviously been worried, he’s happy to see her, but she’s too busy wondering how he can’t hear the blood rushing in her ears to do more than lean toward him.

“You and Charlie.” She starts for him as she steps past him, crossing the living room to fall onto the couch.

“Charlie and I,” he echoes dragging the armchair over to sit with his knees knocking against hers. “Nothing’s set in stone but, Mac.” He demands her attention gently. “I don’t want this—”

She pulls her knees up, drops them to the side of his chair with a glare. “If you think Jim would—”

“Let me finish.” He cuts her off firmly, not letting her argue, not letting her say anything at all; he wasn’t asking for her permission. “Charlie and I are planning on resigning after the election Tuesday night. We’re meeting with Leona after the show on Monday. Rebecca wants to talk to me again before that otherwise— We’re not telling the staff until after.”

“Just like that? Just like that after the weeks you spent— Let me finish,” she cuts him off with a glare. “Telling me, refusing to—”

“Charlie and I are resigning. You’re—”

“Resigning.” She cuts in, eyes still narrowed.

“Mac.” He says like she’s missing the point but she shakes her head, not listening.

“You won’t have a say.”

“Mac, we’re doing this so—”

“No.” She says flatly. “You want to resign? Fine. But so am I and you don’t get to—”

“MacKenzie.” There’s a warning there she shouldn’t ignore, but she’s rapidly becoming furious, rapidly losing her ability control the overwhelming rush of emotions. She needs to calm down, she knows that, he isn’t mad, but it won’t take much she knows that too. They can’t both be mad, can’t both be saying things they don’t mean.

“I shouldn’t.” She says and he seems to hear I shouldn’t have, because he raises his eyebrows as she kicks irritably at the side table, the leg sticking out beside the couch. She’s wedged in too close to step around it without tripping and she’s too angry with him to ask him to move.

“Charlie and I are going to resign and you and Jim will—”

“You don’t get give up and then tell me what to do.” She snaps.

“I’m not,” He takes a breath, steadies himself and his voice. “I know— can we take a second, talk about this?”

“Can we?” She looks at him wide-eyed, carefully swallowing down a laugh. “You want to— now?”

“I know this is a big deal. I knew you were going to be upset. I didn’t want to—”

“Tell me what the two of you have been whispering about for weeks? You didn’t want to ask my opinion, or was it that you couldn’t be bothered?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want to,” he ignores her goading, “upset you if nothing came of it, if we decided not to—”

“I’m not a child. I don’t need you to protect me.” It’s the wrong thing to say. She had known it was the wrong thing to say before she’d said it, before she’d seen the look on his face, the soft wounded look he turns away to hide. It was a touchy subject, a tender one she knew now that his dad was gone. “I’m sorry, Will. Please?” She whispers suddenly spent. “I’m sorry, Will.”

“Mac.” His voice is soft, gentle, but he isn’t looking at her. He won’t even turn to look past her, let her see that he’s all right.

She bites her lip to stop herself from pushing. Jim had been right. She should’ve taken more time. She’d insisted on leaving right away even though she’d wanted to cry then, curl up and let someone stroke her hair. She’d needed the time, but she’d wanted it to be Will there with her so she hadn’t listened and now, now she wants to fall apart.

***

 

“Don’t you dare tell me how great it is being on the air, then turn around and, in the same breath, tell me you’re willing to give it up.”

“I could—” she watches him swallow the words down. It’s the first time she’s lobbed that at him, the closest she’s come to the truth, but that doesn’t seem to be what he’s hung up on. There’s something else but he’s stopped short of putting it into words, stopped short of even trying.

She knows he wants to make her feel better, but even in that it doesn’t feel like he’s making much of an effort, it’s lackluster, exhausted, too weary of the fight they haven’t started yet to sound like much of a comfort.

“We need to do this right. We might as well enjoy it.” That’s all he says. That’s all he says and when she doesn’t say anything, when she doesn’t know what to say, what to feel, when she doesn’t leave he gets up and brushes by her, reaches to squeeze her arm before he disappears and she’s left staring after him in disbelief.

Had it been meant as a platitude, had it been rote memory, an instinct, had he meant it? Where the hell did he think he was going? The studio would be empty for another twenty minutes, Charlie was upstairs. Briefly she considers following him, peppering him with questions, possibly accusations although she knows that’s better saved for another time and place.

The longer it’s been, the more irritable he gets, the more confused she is, the more defensive she feels. They’re both angry, both trying not to be, but the night before, Leona’s refusal, had set them both on edge.

*

She doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s him, anyone else would have barged in and gotten to work, but the door hangs open for a second, two. She turns to make sure but the words are already tumbling out. 

“Get back in the studio.” She knows she sounds sharp. She knows she’s raising a few eyebrows but she doesn’t care. It wasn’t that she was irritated with him, although she was, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t any one thing, and that was the problem. It wasn’t one thing. It was everything. It was too much. She didn’t need the distraction right now.

“Two minutes.” Tess chimes in when Will glances at her pointedly, but neither of them are budging.

“Get back in the chair. Now.” She adds, careful and even, and he gives her a look, one that says he really wishes she wouldn’t, that he only wants a minute, that they didn’t have to make this into a thing, that he’s really tired of this, so tired of this and would she just—

“Sixty seconds.” The words tip up into a question as he glances at Tess, eyes shifting to the side and then back to her.

“In the studio.” She reiterates slowly and he sighs, backs off, slips out of the door that finally whispers shut.

*

“Let it go.” He says with a bit of a warning and it takes everything she has not to roll her eyes because she’s tired of him telling her to calm down, relax, like she needed that, especially from him.

“You don’t think I can let it go?” She challenges but he doesn’t answer, only looks at her like she should know, like this is just another thing they can’t agree on.

She could let it go, but she won’t. She doesn’t care that to him that technically makes him right. Right and wrong were too relative; that’s not what they’re fighting over anyway. She wants to get this right, this one thing right, because if she has to walk out the door tonight and not look back she wants to have done something right, something concretely truthful, even something this small and inane. She wants to— she can’t explain, but Neal doesn’t need her to and she stumbles in gratitude, the pair of them chuckling at her verbal fumble. They’d been wrong; she wanted nothing more than to fix it.

*

She wouldn’t normally leave the realm of the control room until after the show had wrapped, but on a night like tonight she strays into the studio, wandering in and out, doing her job despite the tension simmering beneath them. Jim still does the running between the control room and the newsroom, wrangling the staff who aren’t popping in and out to give her updates, but even there there’s an unvoiced tension. He’s worried about her, she knows that. He isn’t hovering, he doesn’t have time for that, so she shouldn’t mind, but she does. It’s been hours of this and she needs a break so she slips out of the control room and into her office.

She’d left the door propped open earlier. She doesn’t dare shut it now and draw attention to the fact that she’s here. It isn’t that she’s hiding, she just doesn’t want the interruption. An open door was more of a deterrent than a closed one in this case, unless you happened to be Will it seemed.

He pauses long enough to determine she isn’t on the phone and then pulls the door shut behind him. “What are you doing?” 

She blinks at the screen in front of her. “Looking at Ohio.”

She hadn’t been, not particularly, but it was as good an excuse as any.

“There are people—” He tips his head toward the conference room and she shakes her head, dissuading him. “You don’t need me to protect you.”

She blinks at him, knowing by his sudden unease that he hadn’t intended to be so abrupt.

“You’ve never,” he starts more slowly, almost gently, gesturing toward a chair, asking permission. She nods and he continues. “You’ve never needed me to protect you, Charlie either, but you,” he pauses to hold up a hand and stall her, “you keep throwing that at me like you’re the one with the compulsion.”

It’s meant to be self-deprecating, but it falls a little short, sits a little heavily in her stomach as he continues.

“You don’t need me to stand in front of you and shield you from the world. You’ve dealt with more shit, can deal with more shit than I ever have, and don’t,” he waves her off again, “tell me you disagree because that isn’t the point. The point is,” he pauses to let her frown at him. “The point is you’re not a fucking damsel in distress, you’re not a damsel, you’re the dragon, giant, whatever the metaphor is supposed to be. That first morning you walked into the newsroom you ploughed straight through me and everyone else. You knew what you wanted and you didn’t stop till you got it. I don’t know what you want now, but I know you’re not going to stop until you get it. I’ve been standing in front of you like an idiot. I want to get out of your way.”

“Are you finished?” She asks when he’s been quiet for a moment, when the momentum behind his words has dissipated and he’s watching her, waiting, more impassively.

“Yeah.”

“Good, because that’s bullshit.”

“Is it?” His eyebrows creep up but he doesn’t say anything else. He’s come in here, she thinks, to apologize in a way, to try and make peace because he knows when Charlie comes back down from the party they’ll be back at one another’s throats, not because they needed to be, that decision will have been made, but because he’s the one that still can’t let this go.

“It’s like the prince saying ‘hey marry me. I’m a compulsive gambler, but don’t worry next time I win big I’ll build you a castle.’”

“Mac. It’s not— I just want you to be happy.”

“Then get out of the fucking way. Stop telling me what I can and can’t do.”

“You really want to go?”

She swallows down a sudden cloying panic, an aching sadness and nods before she speaks. “Yes.”

“All right.” He’s quiet for a moment, looking pained, looking angry. “I won’t ask you to— if that’s what you want.”

“Yes.” She says again, despite the fact everything in her is screaming that she’s lying because she is, because she didn’t want to go, hadn’t begun to imagine what her life would be like after, but she needed to go, not because of the staff, she knew most of them would follow her out the door, but because if they couldn’t rebuild, it was the only way they could wipe the slate clean. ACN could recover, the staff as scattered as they would be could continue to fight, and whatever became of her career would be worth the price she’d paid, but that didn’t make this any easier.

There had been a time when he would have known that, but it seems lost to him now. He’s too caught up in the numbers, too focused on what they’d lost, what they were losing, to pay any attention to what was right in front of him and that made her furious. “If you’re going so am I.”

*

“We need you.”

She checks her watch, but they still have a couple of minutes. Confused she starts to ask, “is there,” but Jenna ducks back out behind the door and so she sighs and follows, making her way around the scattered desks slowly, carefully despite the sense of urgency.

It’s unbelievable at first, but Don lays out the facts as Will disappears back into the studio and she doesn’t doubt for a second that they’re turning down the trade. It’s not even an option, although she knows Don wishes it was, knows Will would think it was.

She’ll hear about it later she’s sure, when it’s too late for either of them to do anything about it, when Will’s telling her it might’ve saved them, although he has to know it wouldn’t have. They were leaving for all the right reasons; one story wasn’t going to change that. One story even a big one like this couldn’t turn back the clocks, couldn’t unair a broadcast, couldn’t stop her from doing the right thing. They were airing the Brody quote; they could argue about it later. 

*

“Mac you can stay where you are. I want the rest of the senior staff in the studio now.”

She hadn’t argued. He’d been visibly agitated by what Taylor had said, enough so that she figures she knows what’s coming, figures she can let him throw his weight around one last time, because at least this time he won’t be having this argument with her and maybe, just maybe, he’ll finally get it through his head that she wasn’t trying to martyr herself.

It seems at first that she might be right. Don’s assertion doesn’t raise an argument but when Jim chimes in reiterating, Will’s look sours.

She watches the whole thing unfold on the monitor, sees the look Will shoots at the camera, dark and frustrated. It’s selfish but she’s glad she has the screen between them, a bit of space to blunt the edges of his anger. She hadn’t said a word to Jim, but he obviously thinks she’s played some part in this, this mutiny that Jim’s so calmly supporting.

She’d known it would come down to this, had known this was coming. Jim had walked into her office the afternoon before and told her that he knew. He hadn’t been specific, but he hadn’t needed to be when he’d started with, “you’re planning on resigning too, aren’t you?”

She’d protested, tried to put him off, all the while knowing she was confirming his suspicions. “Will asked me not to say—” She’d pleaded with him silently as he raised his eyebrows and waited for an actual denial.

It was in the water supply. That’s what he’d said, that’s all he had said. The staff knew, the staff had known, and now they were standing firm and Will’s a little peeved, he’s a little pissed. It wasn’t just her and her idealism he had to contend with but every single member of the senior staff. She’d taught them well, too well she knew he was thinking.

“No one’s resigning.” 

“That’s great.” Jim announces, “but while you’re boxing up your office we’ll be turning in our letters of resignation to Leona.”

“That’ll go over well.” Will counters. “We can add that to the list of things for her to yell about tonight but no one’s resigning. I’m not resigning. Charlie’s not resigning. No one is resigning. None of you are resigning. She won’t hear of it. She’s not settling and she’s not accepting resignations. You’re welcome to sue her if you disagree, but she and Rebecca are working the phones, so right now might not be the best time to inform her of your intent. Is that clear?”

She watches Sloan glare daggers at the side of Will’s head, takes in the frown on Jim’s face and the stubborn look on Will’s. “We fucked up. We’re going to fix it. That’s the end of it.” He says turning toward the camera knowing she must be watching. “Now if someone could please inform Mac that we’re all staying, we’re two minutes back.”

*

He’s been checking in with her throughout the night. She knows he must have something to tell her if he’s pulling her from the control room in the middle of a package, but she needs to know. “What the hell happened? Leona?”

He’s too calm for this even though she knows she doesn’t look as frantic as she feels.

“She’s not changing her mind. Rebecca’s insistent. We’re stuck.” There’s a hint of a smile with that, a bit of warm humor. She tries to smile back but feels herself grimace instead.

“She doesn’t—”

“She’s fully aware of the consequences.” Charlie cuts her off. “Losing half her staff isn’t one she wants to contend with. She wants a news division and a damn good one. We’re going to have to fix it. She thinks we’re up for the challenge.”

“I’m not asking— because it’s too hard. I’m—”

She lets Charlie cut her off, lets him soothe her with his obvious happiness. It was going to be a fight, a long one, but right now she needs the comfort of the familiar optimism. Things with Will had been escalating for days and she wanted it to stop. She wanted it to stop but, “did you ask Will to tell me about Leona’s decision?”

She keeps the question light, but she knows he’s noticed the tension between her and Will, the unvented frustration the two of them were carrying around.

“Taylor goosed it.” His shrug is easy, lazy, but the glint in his eye tells her he knows exactly what she’s up to.

“You heard his,” she doesn’t bother finishing because Charlie’s grin grows.

“Showboating.”

She shrugs, but she can feel a flicker of a smile on her face, Charlie’s amusement too contagious to ignore.

“Newsmen and their egos.” He shakes his head and she feels her smile falter for a second. 

“Yeah.”

*

They’d planned this, the break that was meant to prove a point, but they didn’t need it now that Leona had put her foot down, or so she’d thought before Will had gotten up from his chair.

Don doesn’t look impressed, but when Sloan sighs and Elliot stands to switch seats he nods and lets her go without argument. 

“If you’re going to,” he starts, smiling when she raises her eyebrows. “Aim for the gut.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She smiles a bit at the joke as she leaves. Charlie, as she knows he’d intended, had settled her down a bit. The coverage has been going well and she’s willing to take a step back and try this again, quietly, with an even temper, even if she knows they’re better off waiting until they got to his apartment, waiting until tomorrow. It’s too far along in the day, too late, for her to manage an apology, she knows she’s holding on too tightly, that she needed to let go, but a conversation, a civil conversation could help things along.

“Do you still want to leave?”

He has his eyes glued to the TV as she walks in so she scoffs at the question and doesn’t reply, hopping up onto the counter instead of taking one of the other seats.

“Mac.”

“Yeah.”

“Question.”

“Yeah?”

He mutes the TV and turns toward her. “Do you still want to go?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Yes.”

“Not does it, it doesn’t.”

“That’s not—”

“That’s exactly the point.” She’s trying not to get angry, already trying not to pick at the wounds they kept slashing at. She’s trying not to get angry but he should know; he shouldn’t have to ask. She would never want to leave. There was a part of her that thought she never could, but she would if she had to, if she still had him, still had something to hold on to. “You should know that.”

“I’m not asking you to reconsider.”

“You’re just doubting— I know you’ve been— but me?” She hears her voice crack and she stops herself, takes a breath, looks away to her hands fisted in her lap.

“Mac, I’m not—” He’s trying to find some middle ground, she knows he’s trying. Some part of what she’d said had finally sunk in, but it’s been too long. It’s been four long days of this, of the arguing, the silent frustrated looks, four days too many for her to let this go without an answer.

“Do you still want to go?”

“Mac.” Not exasperated, pleading.

“Do you?” She demands and he rakes a hand through his hair. Normally that would be enough to put her off. It was a gesture he’d eradicated when he’d first started working on camera. It was a gesture she’d hardly ever seen from him, but there it was now, and she was ignoring it. “Well?”

“I’m not sure I should answer that.” He says quietly, with a careful evenness that makes her shiver. “If I can’t say anything right…”

“That’s not fair.”

“To who?”

“Fuck. Will.” She lets her hand come down hard on the counter beside her before she sighs.

“What is it that you need, because I got out of your way. I got out of your way and—”

“And what?” She demands but he doesn’t say anything, he just looks at her, looks sad, looks like her wants to say something but he doesn’t.

“Will.”

He stands and takes a step toward her trying to bridge the gap but she’s still pushing, still trying to make him see.

“We can’t keep— we’re banging our heads on the wall and it hurts. I’d like to stop, but I need you to tell me how.” He’s being so gentle, so patient. He’s angry but he’s stomping it down because he had been listening, he may still be listening, but everything hurts and she can’t stop herself.

“So this is my—”

“God, Mac.” He cuts her off, frustrated but somehow not angry, not yet. “Help me fix this.”

“Fix what?”

She’s expecting him to hesitate. She’s expecting him to stiffen for a moment, recoil, stop to take a breath, but he reaches instead and gently cups the side of her face, looks at her, right at her, eyes searching. “I miss you and it fucking sucks.”

She’s tearing up before she can stop herself, before she has the time to realize that she’s more exhausted than she’d thought, that she should have saved this fight for another day.

“I can’t fix it.” She tells him, slipping to the floor, bracing one hand against the counter, pulling away just enough to give herself room to breathe.

“You don’t have to.” He assures her making it sound enough like a promise that she wants to believe him.

“I used to think that.” She confesses and he frowns at her. “You think I haven’t forgiven myself.”

She’d expected him to hear a confession but she can see immediately that she’s miscalculated.

“This isn’t about that.”

“I fucked up.” She’s pushing. She’s pushing and she doesn’t need to, but there’s a part of her that’s panicked by the sadness in his eyes, the resignation she sees there and she knows another argument, even an argument over what amounts to nothing, would be better than that. She’d wanted him to understand but now she’s scared of what’ll happen when he does.

“We all did.” He counters immediately, stubborn not in an angry way, but in a way that lets her know he’s building an argument, putting the pieces together. “You’re not hung up on that any more than I—”

He stops and she can’t help but wince.

“Mac, is this about, is,” he pauses considering not the words, but the way she can’t quite look at him. “I thought we hashed this out back in March.”

Back in March. She’d figured he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to say ‘when my dad died.’ She hadn’t expected— She’d gotten angry, upset, scared and then she’d stopped. She’d decided to hold her tongue, she’d decided this wasn’t something she could fix. She had tried to accept that this was something she was going to have to live with. She’d known he didn’t see it as something he needed to fix, it wasn’t something he wanted to fix, but she hadn’t realized, hadn’t expected that he didn’t see it as a problem.

“You don’t,” she can see him running through the possibilities and she wonders which ones he’s considering. “Mac you don’t think— I love you.”

“I know.” She bites her bottom lip hard to stop herself from digging her fingertips into her thighs, stop herself from swaying as she unconsciously takes a step back.

“No,” he shakes his head, trying to fumble through to what he means to say as she glances at herself in the mirror, focuses on blinking back tears, sniffs to stop her nose from running. Her eyes would be a little red when she got back to the control room, but with the light the way it was during a broadcast she doubted anyone would notice if she kept a smile plastered on her face.

“I want to stay just as much as you do.” He finally decides to answer her question, but his response doesn’t mean a thing to her anymore. Did he want to stay? Did he think she wanted him to stay? Did it matter? Should it matter? She smiles at herself one last time and glances over at the TV.

“We should get back.”

“We need to talk— we should talk about this.”

“You need to get on the air.”

“I know.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Two minutes?” but he too is watching the last of the commercials flicker across the screen. “Later, please?” He asks as she files out the door in front of him and she nods knowing she has to.

*

“Mac can I have a minute?” He’s behind her again, at the door, lingering. She almost sends him back to the studio, dismisses him, but he sounds uncertain, hesitant and she knows she’s not the only one who’s noticed, knows she can’t push him away without it becoming a thing, so she nods, despite the anger bubbling in her chest and asks Don to take over.

They don’t go far, just out into the hall behind the studio, the door to the makeup room glowing bright despite the fact she knows no one’s in there and the lights shouldn’t be on.

“I don’t care about the numbers,” he starts quietly but she cuts him off.

“Stop.” She doesn’t mean to snap but he’s only making it worse, only making her more angry and it’s late enough now that angry is too exhausting, that angry is only going to end in tears and they’re at work. They may have called the race but they’re still in the middle of a broadcast and she won’t, can’t go there, even if he seems to have forgotten that he’s supposed to care about that too.

“Let me finish.” His voice rises toward the end and she glares at him, steps past him to pace to the corner of the makeup room, stopping under the TV to turn back as he follows her in.

“It’s a fucking dirty habit.” He tells her plainly, “and I know you hate it, but none of,” he waves his hand through the air, “that had anything to do with Genoa, with my— my ego’s not that fragile.”

“You’re selling out to public pressure.”

He doesn’t react, doesn’t even blink, just waits to see if she’s finished, waits to reply until she’s desperately wishing she wasn’t so angry so she could apologize.

“How is that any different than you—”

“I wasn’t the one who waited two months to decide.” She stops, hands held to her face, and turns away.

He’s quiet, so quiet, but he hasn’t left. He’s still standing there and she knows she’s going to have to turn around if she wants to see his reaction, if she wants to see if he has one.

“That’s my fault too.” She offers honestly. She can give him that, even though he knows he’s going to push back. He’s going to push back because neither of them seem to be able to stop anymore. He’ll push and she’ll push because they’re too terrified of what will happen when they stop.

“OK,” he breathes out and she realizes he’s been thinking, not waiting, but considering. She’s been standing here terrified and he has no idea, has no idea how long she’s been waiting. “Can you try and explain? I’m not— I’m missing something. I need your help.”

“What?” In her confusion she turns around before she realizes what she’s doing.

“I don’t even know what we’re arguing about anymore. We’re not resigning. We can’t. That’s not an issue anymore but we can’t, we can’t stop arguing and I don’t know, I don’t know why or for what or,” he trails off as she looks away, edgy, uncomfortable.

There’s a part of her that wishes Jim were here, that he could wedge himself between them and, not mediate, but translate, but she couldn’t ask that of him and even if she did, she wasn’t sure he would. He’d come back from New Hampshire, set her on her feet, and taken a step back. She had it figured out, he’d said and she’d thought she had. She’d thought she had but now she wonders if that had been a lie.

“Both of us want to be here.” He says it plainly and she feels an upswell of relief, clings to it knowing it may only be temporary. “We both want to fix this. What am I missing?”

Hold me. She desperately wants to say, the sadness creeping into his voice almost too much for her to bear. 

“I don’t know.” She whispers instead and she knows he hears it then, the nagging fear she’s been hiding for months, because the air rushes out of his lungs and he’s there right in front of her tender and soft, yet firm in his resolve. He isn’t hesitating, he’s gently tipping her chin up, kissing her.

Soft and sweet, she lets him hold her for a moment, lets herself lean into him and find comfort in the memory of all the other times he’d pulled her close.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.” He promises as they separate, both conscious suddenly, as they were apt to be, of the time that had passed.

***

 

"Mac?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I have a minute?" He's crouched next to the bed, looking up at her when she glances over. "It doesn't have to be right now."

It doesn't have to be, but she nudges at her laptop, shifting it to the side just enough to let him know it needed to be. It needed to be, before she had time to start thinking about what it was he wanted to say, what he might ask. She’d spent the better part of a week wondering when he’d want to have this conversation and she’s grown weary of the waiting.

"I talked to Jack," he smiles a little as he squeezes her hand and stands to round the bed. "And I've thought a lot about what he said, what I said." He amends again. "I've been a dick."

He sits and shakes his head so she'll let him continue, although she isn’t sure she could’ve made words come out of her open mouth anyway. She hadn’t been expecting this, hadn’t been expecting anything like this.

"You know I love you."

She isn't sure if it's meant to be a question so she nods just in case, letting him pick up her hand and smooth it over his, palm to palm.

"I don't ever want to hurt you again. I never wanted to hurt you, but I have, and that," he swallows. "It kills me when you're hurting."

"I know." She whispers, soothed and disconcerted but his sudden naked honesty. He's struggling not for words, but for composure, and while that would normally scare her, she finds it’s taking the teeth out of the terror that had been gnawing at her since the night before when Jim had gently suggested she try again to explain.

"He needs the facts, Mac, all of them." He’d prodded softly in her office after the show.

She could do it. She’d explained it to him, Jim had continued to insist, but that wasn't the same and he knew it. They’d always traded questions back and forth, a particularly vicious game of truth or dare on her part, spread out over years and continents. He'd asked her once what she had against shorts and she'd countered with an impassive, ‘why don't you ever man up and breakup with them yourself?’ He'd ask, and when her prying didn't dissuade him, she’d answered him reluctantly, thankful for the gentle questions he peppered her with as she struggled for words.

"I thought," Will continues, running his thumb over her knuckles, "I didn't realize I wasn't listening. I didn't realize how much of what I heard was me trying to make myself feel better. I thought if what was wrong was something that had already happened, that maybe I could fix it and then when you said— if it was something I'd done, something I was doing. I was relieved until I saw the look on your face. I—" He stops to glance at her but she's resolutely staring at their hands, the way her ring is catching the early afternoon light from the window. 

“I know you've been trying to tell me something,” his fingers curl up to squeeze hers, reassuring,” and I wasn't listening. I'm sorry, Mac. I'm listening now. I know it might be too little too late but," he sighs.

"No," she shakes her head a little, wanting to offer him something. "It's not. I don't think, before, maybe." She shakes her head and echoes his sigh.

He sits quietly for a moment, waiting for her to look at him she figures, but she can’t, and he doesn’t ask, only waits and then picks the conversation up again. “I lied when I said I wasn’t trying to protect you. I was. I was trying to protect you, protect myself, by not listening, by not acknowledging what I couldn't fix. You needed me to be there for you and I— There's a lot I haven't heard, but I'd like to hear it, when you're ready, when you feel like you can. Maybe I can't fix it, but that doesn't mean you have to carry it alone. If anything— You shouldn’t have to be alone. You’re not alone.” 

He brushes the side of her jaw with his fingertips and she knows without looking that he’s smiling, looking a little wistful, a little hopeful. “It’s a lot to trust me with, but some time, maybe.”

He tucks her hair behind her ear and lets her consider, watches her while everything spins around in her head until, “let’s go for a walk. We could get coffee.”

A reset. She knows that’s what he’s asking for, what he’s looking for, and there’s a part of her that wants to tell him no. He’s cut her off before she can work herself up, but it’s still there, the worry and the fear, the exhaustion that’s been nagging at her for weeks.

“It’s,” she fumbles for the word slushy, icy, winter, but his smile is a little impish when she looks at him and she gives in with a sigh.

*

“Where?” She looks around and then looks at him, but he only shrugs, the motion jostling the hand he has at the small of her back. The snow’s mostly cleared from from the sidewalk so he isn’t worried as he watches her wander off to peer into some of the windows they’re passing.

She has a general idea of where they are, Will had given the cabbie the address for the Hyatt, but they’d stopped at the corner of Wall St on their way down Pearl, half a block before the hotel.

“I’m not walking all the way to the Exchange.” She warns him and he shakes his head gesturing toward the bank of doors on their left before they cross the street and slip inside a revolving door.

*

She gasps as he chuckles behind her. It was magical, another of the city’s hidden gems, the sort of space that had enthralled her as a child. The whole place feels like it’s washed in white light, the ceiling high enough that she has to crane her neck to see it.

Will prods her gently out of the door and she takes a step forward, still staring, grabbing his arm to steady herself as she gawks.

“I finally found one your dad doesn’t know about?” He’s pleased with himself, laughing softly. “We can sit by one of the palms if you want.”

“Palm trees?” She drops her gaze from the ever reaching columns and the vaulted ceiling, to take in the rest of the space, the room lined with large planters each one housing, as Will had suggested, its own palm. 

She’s staring up at the grated ceiling through the leaves of the palm behind her some time later when he comes back with a couple of coffees, slipping onto the impromptu concrete bench beside her.

“Is it official? Can I call your dad and gloat?”

“You don’t gloat.” She frowns at him, accepting the coffee he’s holding in front of her. “You call and laugh about how adorable I am.”

“You are adorable.” Will prys the lid off his coffee to blow on it. “And sweet, and beautiful, and sexy.” He grins a little, teasingly, then continues with a put on sternness, seemingly chastized, “and smart, and clever, brilliant.”

“Etcetera.”

“Except I tend to leave out the sexy part. It’s not exactly a secret.” He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, mischievous. “But I don’t think your dad wants to hear about that.”

“Oh god.” She rolls her eyes and manages not to laugh as she shakes her head. “You’re such a child.”

“You definitely don’t have cooties.” He affirms as a counterpoint to her dismissal. “Not a one.”

“Maybe you’re already infected. Maybe that’s why you’re so in love with me.”

“Nope.” He takes a couple of quick gulps of his coffee before setting it down on a nearby table so he can wind his arm around her waist. “There’s too much sexy for there to be any cooties.”

“Is that so?” She sips cautiously at her own coffee as he nods and she allows herself a smile, tipping her head back to look up at the ceiling again. “Who comes up with this stuff?”

“Cooties?”

“Will.”

“The ceiling.” He corrects as he leans his head against hers, peering up. “I don’t know. I’m not going to have to take a weekend course in architecture am I?”

“That would be fun.” She says partly because she knows he’s going to groan, hamming it up a bit to make her smile.

“I can think of better ways to spend our weekends.” He assures her with a softly huffed laugh as she jumps slightly, his thumb brushing bare skin under the hem of her sweater.

He was prone to that, fingers worming their way to bare skin, but he was always careful in public, particularly discrete here in the city, his thumb and a couple of fingers slipped under whatever fabric wasn’t tucked into her pants, whatever he could pry free without drawing too much attention, his hand curved around the slope of her waistband. It looked more accidental than intentional, although his hand on her waist was decidedly protective, not _mine_ but clearly _not yours_.

She liked that he was so delighted by having her close, the careful attention he would pay her, the way he would sometimes brush her hair out of her eyes so she wouldn’t have to. She’d hesitated when they’d first started dating, when dating had meant sleeping together, worried she’d mistaken feelings for something else, but he hadn’t pushed, had never been possessive, and she had known, then, how wrong she’d been before.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so,” she pours the last of her coffee down the back of her throat, “angry lately.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do.” She cuts him off.

“It’s all right.” He accepts when she insists, offering her the rest of his coffee wordlessly and she shakes her head, still considering, it seems, the expanse above them.

“It’s been hard,” she pauses, thinks about stopping when he hums in agreement, before pressing on, ignoring how quickly the room seems to close in on them,”to talk about when, when I’d have to explain and I—” She bites the inside of her lip, wincing at the soft sting the motion brings; she’d spent too many days in the past week carefully keeping her mouth shut.

She feels his arm tighten around her, his hand resting on her hip now, but he doesn’t say anything and she winces again. “I used to think if I could just explain, but now,” she shakes her head. “I stopped thinking that was a good idea when I realized you were still in love with me.”

“When was that?”

“When I found out about Wade.” The words come out scratchy and she curls toward him. She’d known all along that it was a possibility, but she hadn’t realized how badly she could still hurt him, how completely, until that night. It’d been a sobering, terrifying thought.

“Well Bob’s your uncle.” He sighs tugging her closer, his hand slipping up her back until his fingers wind their way into her hair. It’s an absent, thoughtful gesture. She closes her eyes and lets herself find comfort in it. “The letters?”

“Yeah.” She sighs long and slow.

“You never did say in all those emails.”

“There weren’t words. I wanted to see you. You deserved—”

“I know.” He soothes, his finger brushing the side of her jaw. “You left me a couple of messages.”

“Long distance was expensive.”

“I know.”

“You never asked me.”

“Asked you what?” He shifts slightly, to watch her more closely she figures, but she leaves her eyes pressed shut.

“What I wanted to tell you. What was so important.”

“I figured ‘I fell in love with you’ covered it well enough.”

“Hmm.” She supposes in a way it did, could see why, now, that was all that mattered to him. “It did.” She finally decides to tell him. “I did and I wanted you to know. I knew you— you were still worried, still so careful to make sure I knew I had a choice, that I could say no, that I didn’t have to worry about my job or my reputation. You were so good to me and I wanted you to know— I didn’t want you to keep worrying. I loved you and I wanted you to know that I was sure, why I was so sure.”

“That’s where Brian came in?”

She doesn’t say anything at first, wondering if yes would cover it, if yes meant she wouldn’t have to explain how she had known, wouldn’t have to explain Tuesday and last Saturday and every other time they haven’t had this conversation. “Something like that.”

“Something like that?”

“Mmm hmm,” she makes herself smile, relieved when his returning smile is bright and soft.

“OK.” He accepts quietly, waiting patiently to make sure she’s finished before offering, “did you want to walk some more?”

“We walked here.” She says reflexively as her gaze shifts and fixes on the white tiled columns holding fast to the wonder. “Can we look around?”

*

She’d wanted the conversation to end there, then, in a way that she knew wasn’t possible. It’d been dragging on for too long now, something she’s somehow finding more unsettling than their drawn out arguments from the previous week. Will was making good on his promise, listening, not pushing, not pushing back, but with everything feeling so tenuous, even that felt temporary.

They’d made a slow circle around the atrium before he’d insisted on picking up food on the way back to the apartment. The food was good, some of the best they could’ve hoped for on short notice in that part of the city but even so, toasted and warm, she hardly tastes the sandwich she’s carefully holding away from the book she’s flipping through, occasionally smiling at Jim’s unsteady hand in the marginalia. _Ataat, kursi, ariika_ , those she knows but _foteyy_ is highlighted, ‘eg’ circled beside it.

Jim’s understanding of Arabic had always been more scattered than hers. He’d spent his free time watching movies, playing guitar, indulging his other hobbies; she didn’t have any. She’d never had the time. She’d had school and then she’d had work, and for a while she’d had Will, but overseas she’d had work— the news— and books. Books she’d devoured until words had become stilted conversations. It had never amounted to anything near fluency, although Jim might beg to differ, but it had given her an advantage, allowed her to focus on tone and timber, on connotation, intonation, nonverbal cues. She could pick the specific translations she wanted used, could get the gist of a conversation before the translator started speaking. She’d gotten some of her best interviews because of that.

Even so she’d been more interested in the etymology and the linguistics of the language after she’d come home, but with Jim fumbling through translating reports related to Benghazi she’d been reminded of how careful she had to be not to lose what she’d learned.

“Is there an Arabic equivalent for douchebag?” Will asks settling onto the couch beside her, sandwich long gone, as she looks over questioningly.

“You mentioned Brian earlier.” He shrugs in reply. “I thought it might be a good place to start.”

He’d been the one to mention Brian, but she wasn’t about to point that out, not when she’d inadvertently be pointing out how she’d avoided answering the same silent question earlier. She doesn’t want to answer it now, she hadn’t wanted to answer it earlier either, but she should have. It would’ve been safer, would’ve felt safer, in public, sheltered in the muted murmuring of nearby conversation.

But he was asking again, in a roundabout sort of way, and he’d listened, patiently, quietly. He had listened. 

“You told me once that you thought I was perfect.”

“Are you disagreeing?”

“I’m,” she considers for a moment before deciding not to answer. “I’d been watching one of those shows, getting mad because everyone kept saying yes of course they’d cure their chronic condition if they could. They didn’t even have to think about it, and you walked in and I asked you and you snorted and said something about Vicodin, joking.”

“I remember.” He smiles, letting her deflect. “And you said, ‘what about football?’ and I shrugged that off too, so you said ‘what about me, should I?’”

“And you said that it wasn’t up to you, and I said that was a bullshit answer and didn’t you want a perfect girlfriend and you said I was. I was perfect. Brian wouldn’t have said that.”

She can see he wants to disagree, split hairs. They’d never liked each other, he and Brian, professionally or otherwise, but, like with Wade, he tried to be generous, she’d seen something in them after all.

“I knew he didn’t care about my body. He cared about the sex. You said I was perfect.” She reiterates, not to extract a promise, but because it felt incongruous with the mess of emotions she’s been trying to sort through.

“You are.”

“You said you loved me.”

“And then I hurt you.”

“No, Will.” She looks away, hesitant and frustrated with her own unwillingness. “That morning, before I told you. You made me coffee and pancakes and told me you loved me and I said I loved you too and you looked worried so I told you that I was sure. That I knew you loved me and that I loved you too because I’d always wanted someone to love me despite, but that I didn’t need that anymore, that I didn’t want that anymore because I’d found someone that loved me, me. Not because of, not in spite of, just me, and I knew that, I was sure of that because of Brian. I had to be honest, I had to tell you, but I hadn’t intended to tell you like that, to tell you everything, not all at once, but I got stuck, Will. I don’t know. You looked so heartbroken. I kept talking trying to fix it and I fucked it up, made it so much worse. I hurt you.”

“And I took the most vulnerable thing you’d ever done and ruined it.”

“No.” It’s loud and sharp but she doesn’t think about taking it back even when she realizes, looking at the reassuring look on his face, that she must sound panicked.

“I know that’s not what you’re trying to say.” He assures her gently, “but you’re not the only one responsible for what happened. You made a mistake, Mac, the rest was me. I can’t live with you taking the blame for—”

“Billy.” She cuts him off softly and he reaches over to tip her face toward his, his finger tucked under her chin.

“We both made mistakes. It happened.” He insists softly, “whether or not you want to lay blame at my feet doesn’t matter to me. I’ve spent a lot of the last year wishing things had been different, but if I’d kept wishing I’d be missing the time we have now, and more than anything I couldn’t let that happen.”

He makes it sound so simple, he must see that, but he’s so certain, so confident in the way he’s trying to coax her into agreeing.

“We lost a lot more than time.” She replies softly and feels herself shiver, the tiny tremors an unfortunate omen. She was going to cry, and god, she doesn’t want to. 

“I should’ve,” she waits to let him consider, waits to see if he’ll push back and when he doesn’t she continues. “I should’ve caught it earlier. I should’ve seen it, I did, I just—” she bites her lip, “I didn’t trust myself. I don’t.”

“You don’t what?” He asks but when she doesn’t answer he considers it for what it is, a full statement.

“When did that?” He asks after a moment of consideration and she sighs, trying to calm the anxiety thumping in her chest.

“Wade.” She doesn’t stop to consider what he might actually be asking, if he might be wondering when she decided on this particular avenue for her self-flagellation, and not, as she’d intended, inquiring as to when things has started falling apart, although she supposes the answer to that isn’t as singular as she’d just suggested. It could’ve been Wade, but it could have been the day she and Will had broken up, the last time Brian had called her, or the time before that. It could’ve been the day she decided to stay in New York and take the job at CNN instead of following Steve to DC, or the day Lexie had left her at the school gate and she’d tripped, fallen badly enough to cry as she’d limped home alone.

It could’ve been her first few weeks at school, not in New York, but in England, wanting her dad to come home, wanting to go back to her home in the city, the one she’d known only briefly. It could’ve been then, the first time she remembered wishing for something she couldn’t have: her family, a friend, only one, just one and not the gang of girls, her sister’s old friends, that taunted her from the school yard.

This longing, its self-inflicted damage, she hadn’t buried with bourbon and effexor. She’d never tried to numb the pain; she’d always run from it instead, pushed and shoved and wrapped herself in an empty sort of hopefulness. She’d hoped and wanted, and clung to anything that had pushed back against the self-doubt no logic could dispel. She’d wanted and lost, and lost again, but even so Charlie, his optimism, her stubbornness, had pulled her back.

She isn’t sure how to explain this, isn’t sure that she can, because the why doesn’t makes sense. It never had.

“That wasn’t, you’re not responsible for,” she can feel his eyes on her, feel the warmth of his hand still resting against the side of her face. “Mac.”

“I don't get to fuck up.” She says in lieu of any sensible explanation and waits for him to tell her that everyone makes mistakes, waits for him to ask her who hasn’t, waits for him to sound too much like her mother, too much like her father, waits for the excuse to get angry, get restless, but he doesn't say anything.

“I don't,” she tries again, but that wasn't the point. 

“I lost everything and I couldn’t,” that wasn’t the point either, although that was the closest she’s come to talking about her time in DC, about the way she’d stood in the ruins of her life and hadn’t thought to try and pick up the shards that lay scattered about until Charlie had shown up.

She fumbles for something to say, wanting to try again, feeling like she has to, but there isn’t anything, there isn’t anything she can, should say.

“I’m sorry.” His thumb brushes her cheek carefully trying to ease the frustration she’s feeling. “This is a lot. We should’ve— I should’ve been listening, and I wasn’t.”

She’d wanted to throw that at him, had considered it as much as it would’ve hurt them both, and she wonders if he’d known that, if that’s why he’d said something even though it doesn't seem to bother him, this flagrant rehashing of his wrongdoing.

“I keep fucking everything up.” She says, a teary echo of what now feels like an anomaly, that Saturday so long ago in the studio, the flicker of hope that she could fix things, that she could stop fucking them up.

It hadn’t lasted, but she’d kept trying because it was the one thing she couldn't do, the one thing that had made sense in the mess of shouldn't and couldn’t: the childhood confusion of being told she should be able to do things she couldn’t, that she shouldn’t do things that she could. Stubborn, willful, nobody had wanted that, but they'd had expectations, the youngest of five, a woman, work hard, work harder, the promotion to EP: twenty seven, too young to know what she was doing.

She couldn't mess that up. She hadn't allowed herself to. Except she had and she knew it, knew the unwavering trust in herself she’d learned to cling to through the tantrums and the silent tears had somehow been misguided, misleading.

She wasn't covering a temporary bruise, a newly raised ache, this wasn't something he understood, something he saw in her. This was something else. She trusted his trust in her, Jim's trust and Charlie’s, but the confidence they all saw, that they all relied on, it was a thin layer of cracking plaster over ancient ruins. It hurt. She needed to fix it but she couldn't, she hadn't been able to, not in any significant way, not easily, although Charlie had promised her that they would, she could.

She knew that Will believed they could. He hadn’t once questioned Charlie’s assertion, but she still thinks, maybe, “why didn’t I see it?”

“Why didn’t you? Why didn’t I? Maybe we needed to believe that people are good, that they were doing the right thing the right way and not, I don’t know. There’s something to be said for having faith in your fellow human beings.”

“I said that to you once didn’t I?” She smiles a bit trying to remember, aching for the distraction.

“More than once. More than once your first week back. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

“Even if this?” She doesn’t finish but she knows he know what she’s asking, even if they could have avoided this, all of this, the last two months, and everything else.

“It wouldn’t only be this. It’d be everything else too. That first morning at CNN, with the way you walked in, smiled, shook my hand I thought you must not have heard the things the staff were always whispering, but that wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all. You didn’t care.You knew and you didn’t care and I was hopelessly in love already, before you even said a word, before I realized that you recognized me from all those times we’d passed in the hall. No, I wouldn’t change that for anything.”

He breathes out softly and then takes a firmer hold on her jaw so she can’t squirm away when he wipes at the tiny drops slipping down her cheeks with his sleeve. “I don’t want some other MacKenzie. I want this one. I want you. Now. Here. Forever. What if isn’t— it doesn’t matter. You’re OK. We’re OK. We’ll fix this.”

“Will.” She protests knowing he can’t believe that as completely as it sounds like he does. She knows he’s never been particularly skeptical, not when it comes to the big things, but he’s never been one to deal in absolutes not with something like this, not with something so tentative and fleeting like feelings, faith, emotions.

“I’ve always had faith in you, Mac. More faith than I’ve had in myself sometimes. If you feel like you can’t trust yourself, trust that.”

“I do,” she frowns at him, that sad twisting of her lip stuck between her teeth. “I do, it’s not— that’s not logical.”

“I have to be sexy and logical now?”

She never knows where his humor comes from although she understands why and even when, but she hardly ever minds the rapid swing in the conversation even when she thinks she should, even when maybe there’s more to be said, although perhaps not now. She knows he’d tell her that, gently, reminding her there was time, reminding her that she didn’t have to lay herself bare, not now, not ever, and never all at once. “Who said anything about you being sexy?”

She watches him pout, tries not to smile at the way it looks almost genuine despite the warmth in his eyes.

“Give it time.” He coaxes softly.

“That’s a luxury—”

“If we had another story would you pass it up? Reflexively?” He makes it sound like an idle question but she knows he’s trying to make a point.

“No,” she feels her eyebrows furrow, “I wouldn’t. I didn’t. Petraeus, we could have.”

She hadn’t told him about the trade. They’d covered the Patraeus story yesterday along with everyone else, but it hadn’t come up. “We aired the Brody quote on Tuesday.”

“Yeah.” He’s watching her, curious now as she considers where to start.

“You went back to the studio before Don said anything, but he had a source, sources, on the record, confirmation, we could’ve broke the Patraeus story.”

“But we didn’t.”

“No,” she shakes her head, the corners of her mouth turning up. “It wasn’t important, important enough, but I would have.”

“So it’s not,” he pauses, considering the logic behind what she’s saying, trying somehow to make the sharp shards fit within the bigger picture. “I'm not disagreeing. I'm trying to understand.” he cautions softly, releasing her jaw, ceding her the space she needs. “Where's the line between being afraid of fucking up and not trusting yourself?”

“That,” she says because she doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know if that’s the distinction they should be making. Even with the array of fantastic fuck ups she’s had in recent years there had always been a part of her that had seen it coming. She’d never thought she was going to stumble and fall, but she’d known she would, known that sometimes she did, even if she should’ve seen it coming, should’ve stopped it. She hadn’t seen this coming, couldn’t have stopped it.

It wasn’t that though, the seismic shift, but the constant shifting. She didn’t know how to explain it, how similar it felt to the feeling of carefully moving through the apartment after waking suddenly in the middle of the night, the feeling that the floor wasn’t quite there, that she couldn’t quite hold herself steady, the stumbling haphazard steps that swept through the dark to leave her bumping against door frames and furniture half unseen.

“The floor,” she tries piecing the words together, “it’s not.” She shakes her head and looks at him. “I can’t keep, my feet.”

“Your feet are confused.” He smiles, at a memory she assumes, her confusion over hearing her childhood assertion slip off his tongue coming too late to have caused it.

“How?”

“You don’t remember.” He doesn’t sound surprised by that, seems almost to expect it. “That night in DC, that thing for your dad. I can’t remember where it was.”

She couldn’t either, although it was possibile she’d never known. Steve had coordinated the whole thing: picked them up at the airport, drove them to the house so they could change, and then drove the four of them into the city, the kids left home with a sitter, still too young for a night filled with cocktail dresses and the clatter of champagne glasses.

“We’d broken your dad out of the ballroom and were wandering around so no one could rat him out say they’d seen him standing by that horrible bust of the long dead white dude or in the corner by the stairwell. Sheila kept threatening Steve, telling him the two of you were going to take a nap in the middle of the hall if we didn’t leave soon. It had to have been after midnight by then.”

“It looked so soft but god, that carpet was ugly.” She recalls with a little laugh.

“Green?” He hazards a guess and she nods.

“I kept thinking of peacocks for some reason.”

“Pompous,” Will declines to finish the thought, an unkind characterization of the dinner’s guests she figures, in favor of continuing his recollection. “We took the elevator down to the lobby, the doors opened, and you just stood there for a moment. Sheila leaned over and jabbed the ‘door open’ button a couple of times before Steve shoved you out.”

The marble floor, she remembered now. Polished, glossy it‘d looked almost dewy, damp, slippery. She’d known, having gone up the same way they were going out that it wasn’t, that the floor was just a floor, even if it was a bit more slick than the carpet they’d been trodding on. She’d known it’d be fine but she’d been too tired, too fatigued to convince her legs of that.

She’d forgotten about that, forgotten that she must have mumbled irritatedly at herself before Steve had prodded her along, but she hadn’t forgotten the look on Will’s face, his curt, “I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from shoving my girlfriend.”

Girlfriend had been the thing she’d remembered, the sense of ‘mine’, Sheila almost choking trying not to laugh at how startled Steve had looked. Will hadn’t known either of them very well at the time, but that hadn’t mattered. He’d been more concerned with her physical safety, with her sense of physical safety than with what they might think of him and she’d loved that, still loved that about him.

“I remember.” She smiles fondly. “You were so sweet.”

“I was so pissed.” He corrects. “He could’ve taken your arm. He could’ve asked if you needed help.”

Steve could be protective but he’d always been the one to shove her head first into things. She’d always appreciated that about him, even if it left her floundering momentarily like it had that night. Will hadn’t known that at the time, and even now she isn’t sure he appreciates it in the same way she does, but he’s come to accept it, if begrudgingly at times.

“He could’ve—”

“I managed.”

“You always do.” The acknowledgement eases the annoyance on his face and he offers her a fleeting smile, the quirking of the corners of his mouth before it broadens into something that looks a little more smug.

“That’s your grand metaphor?”

“I’m off script, cut me some slack.”

“I’ve seen you vamp better than that.”

“It’s still a valid argument.”

“Yeah.” She nods considering. It’s not the most comforting of assertions, but he wasn’t wrong.

“You’re having a crisis of confidence. I’m sure there’s some ancient— Achilles or Sparta or—”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about anymore.”

“I’m went to college in the US. I didn’t have to read the Classics.” He reminds her with a straight face, waiting until he sees her start to smile to chuckle softly. “I won’t ask you about the courses at Oxford.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moodboards [4](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/post/172207454805/hed-been-asking-her-for-months-not-to-look-not) & [5](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/post/172207457960/he-sits-quietly-for-a-moment-waiting-for-her-to) ([all moodboards](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-hold-you-like-the-answer))  
> [The atrium on Wall St](https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/60-wall-street-atrium-new-york?select=Ft99Rpz_FuNkPNyApHSpFw)  
> [Mac's apartment](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/100-W-39TH-St-APT-38H-New-York-NY-10018/69510413_zpid/?fullpage=true)

**Author's Note:**

> Moodboards [1](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/post/172070543595/going-into-the-office-it-sounds-conversational) & [2](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/post/172070588805/theyre-in-the-woods-she-realizes-that-before) ([all moodboards](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-hold-you-like-the-answer))


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